The case of Robert Bresson’s Balthazar is interesting in this respect. The story tracks the life of a donkey and, to various extents, the lives of the humans around it. The word "transcendent" is often used in reference to the work of Bresson in general and to Balthazar specifically. Bresson was a man with spiritual concerns - Catholicism and Jansenism played significant roles in his development - and has said, in an interview with Ronald Hayman, "I believe anyway that there's something more than just living on the earth."

But the film Balthazar, taken on its own, seems to me to say that life is what it is, and when it’s over it’s over. I think Bresson would have found this take wrong-headed and possibly offensive, but it's how Balthazar strikes me nonetheless.

The polarized responses to this movie may have a lot to do with the fact that the film is laced with symbols of redemption but tells a story that is nihilistic. I have a similar feeling about the extraordinary American writer Flannery O'Connor.