Often praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but long unavailable in the United States, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is suffused with the same religious imagery and themes that mark much of director Robert Bresson's films. Like his masterpiece DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, Bresson's AU HASARD BALTHAZAR combines religious allegory with a naturalistic, austere, and minimalist aesthetic style that matches his ascetic themes. The film tells the story of Marie, an unlucky farm girl, and her beloved donkey Balthazar. As Marie grows up, the pair become separated, but the film traces both their fates as they continue to live a parallel existence. Marie and Balthazar become martyrs, eventually taking the sins of others upon their own heads and finding transcendence in the process. AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is like Bresson's other works in that it seamlessly combines the naturalistic and the spiritual.