Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

This acclaimed French masterpiece tells the story of Balthazar, a donkey, and echoes Biblical themes that characterise Bresson's cinema. In a non-linear, minimalist style, it meditates on the intersection of spirituality, acceptance of suffering in the face of evil, showcasing greed, lust, cruelty and the victimization of innocence. Balthazar’s innocence, nobility, suffering and detachment symbolize Christ. His story is interwoven with the life of Marie – who is trapped in a cycle of hardship and disappointment, highlighting key themes.

            Born on a farm in the French countryside near the Pyrenees, the baby donkey is adopted by three children -- Jacques and his sisters -- who ‘baptize’ him with the name Balthazar. When one of Jacques’ sisters dies, the family leaves the village. Jacques’ childhood sweetheart Marie adopts Balthazar. For years, he has had to work under harsh conditions, taken by local farmhands.  During an accident, he runs off and rejoins the teenage Marie.

Balthazar is given to a baker following a legal dispute between Marie's father and Jacques' father. Gérard, a young criminal, treats him cruelly. He is jealous of Balthazar because of Marie’s affection for him. Marie has to face violence and abuse from Gérard just as Balthazar. But she is enslaved by him and even abandons her parents. Gérard and his cronies are even suspected of murder.

Among his gang is an alcoholic named Arnold who is sympathetic to Balthazar. He rescues the donkey when it is paralysed by sickness, and Gérard plans to kill it. Arnold employs Balthazar as a tourist guide during the season in the Pyrenees, but he escapes from there and is drafted to perform tricks in a circus. Arnold takes him back. During a wild party thrown by Arnold to celebrate a vast inheritance from his dead uncle, attended by Marie, her mother and Gérard, the drunken Arnold is sent home mounted on Balthazar and, on his way, falls and dies.

Balthazar, sold by the police to a miller, is enslaved again to hard work. But Marie meets him in this condition while running away from her parents and seeks shelter in the miller’s house. The miller hands over both to Marie’s parents. Though she refuses to marry Jacques, who seeks her, Marie is later rescued by Jacques and her father when Gérard and his gang imprison her in a barn. Balthazar pulls the cart that takes her home. But she leaves them.

Her father dies and Balthazar is intended to carry the dead man’s ashes at the funeral. But Gérard steals the donkey from Marie’s grieving mother to use him for smuggling. Waylaid by Customs guards, the smugglers escape, and Balthazar is shot. In a poignant, suggestive ending, the wounded and abandoned Balthazar collapses in a meadow and dies quietly amidst a flock of sheep in a field, to the accompaniment of bells.

The Theory of Everything (2014)

Runtime: 123 minutes

Director: James Marsh

Cast: Eddie Redman, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Maxine Peace, Simon McBurney, Abigail Cruttenden, Harry Lloyd, Michael Marcus.

Adapted from the memoir of Jane Hawking (the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking’s first wife), this biopic is a tale of love, resilience, endurance and the relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge in the face of life-threatening physical conditions. It centers on Hawking’s search for a beginning of time, which mirrored in his personal journey; an attempt to unravel the mystery of the universe, formulating a “theory of everything”— a single, unifying explanation for the universe shared by all humans.

At Cambridge University in 1963, 21-year-old post-graduate astrophysics student Stephen Hawking falls in love with Jane Wilde, a literature student. Inspired by Roger Penrose’s lecture on black holes, Stephen pursues research under Prof. Dennis Sciama, developing a theory connecting black holes and the origin of the universe. But his declining physical coordination, diagnosed as a progressive, incurable degenerative motor neuron disease – Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) -- threatens to leave him completely paralyzed, with only two years to live. His intelligence will stay, but he will be unable to communicate.

Depressed and reclusive, Stephen keeps working. Jane’s love sustains him. After marriage, she dedicates herself to his care while raising their children. Soon after the birth of their first son Robert, Stephen is wheelchair bound. His thesis on space-time, theorizing on the black hole and the birth of the universe in a ‘Big Bang’ and its end in a ‘Big Crunch’, makes him famous. After the birth of their daughter Lucy, his health further deteriorates.

            Jane’s family obligations obstruct her academic pursuit. Jonathan Hellyer Jones, a widower and fellow member of their church choir, befriends the family and renders help. The couple’s third child Timothy is born. Stephen’s mother raises doubts about his paternity. The outraged Jonathan distances himself from the family, though Stephen tells him that Jane needs him.

In 1980, a serious illness lands him in a hospital in France, requiring a risky surgery which would render him mute. Jane is at his side. Stephen learns to use a spelling board to communicate with his nurse, Elaine. Using a computer with a voice synthesizer, he writes A Brief History of Time, which sells over ten million copies worldwide.

However, his wife is estranged when Stephen chooses Elaine to accompany him on a visit to the U.S. for an award. Despite a formal divorce, they retain their mutual affection. At a public lecture, Stephen delivers a motivational speech, urging the audience to pursue their ambitions despite harsh realities. His words, “While there's life, there is hope”, carry the key message. The Hawking family is happily reunited during a visit to Queen Elizabeth II to accept membership in the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1989. Jane earns her PhD in literature and marries Jonathan. Stephen and Jane remain friends, sharing three grandchildren.