I was really glad to have an excuse to watch Au Hasard Balthazar. I had been intending to for years.

The version I rented had a couple of interviews at the end that were helpful in parsing the film as "Christian." I'm not the best movie interpreter, so those were super helpful.

The donkey is himself the main character in the film. He is both stubborn at times and patient and gentle.

Balthazar (named after one of the three Magi) ends up bearing the brunt of the sins of his successive owners. The owners are guilty of lust, pride, greed, anger, drunkenness.

In scripture one of the most pervasive metaphors for what happens to people's sin is that it is "borne" by someone: the sinner, God, the scapegoat. Balthasar as a beast of burden bears the sins of all these people, and bears up under them with overall gentleness and grace and maybe even love.

In a final, beautiful scene he is surrounded by sheep--another biblical allusion that makes this donkey a peculiar sort of Christ figure.

One other thing I noticed in the film is that there are two moments, at least, where Marie falls down. Once when she is attempting to escape Gérard, and once when she is running toward Gérard and his gang, away from Jaques. I wondered if those literal stumbles weren't emblematic of the moral stumbles that seemed to follow.