Balthazar, a donkey in rural France, is passed from owner to owner and, in turn, treated kindly and cruelly. Despite his powerlessness, Balthazar accepts his fate nobly. Meanwhile, his first owner, an innocent farmer’s daughter, is seduced by the leader of a group of black-jacketed delinquents.

Transcending its austere aesthetic with sublime heights of emotion, Robert Bresson’s holy heartbreaker is devoted to two saintly figures. No one forgets the guileless face of young Anne Wiazemsky or the poor donkey who goes by the name of Balthazar after watching this masterpiece of modern cinema.