Au Hasard Balthazar (1966 Robert Bresson & scr)

If you're looking for close ups of hands and feet, look no further. Incredibly elliptical film has to be watched closely to make sense. Years pass in a flutter. The cumulative effect of the donkey's trials and his death are shattering.

Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François Lafarge (his is a truly vile character).

Photographed by Ghislain Cloquet.

Great donkey, by the way. Loved the sequence in the zoo - all the animals, and Balthazar's reaction shots. It's one of those slow burners.

From somewhere I'd recorded Ingmar Bergman's thoughts: "Oh, Mouchette, I loved it, I loved it! But Balthazar was so boring I slept through it.. this Balthazar, I didn't understand a word of it, it was so completely boring... A donkey, to me, is completely uninteresting, but a human being is always interesting."

(John Simon "Do you like animals in general?"

"No, not very much. I have a completely natural aversion for them."