The Red Balloon (1957)

Admirable film.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Every rainy day in elementary school we were subjected to this horror show of a movie. A boy is stalked around Paris by a sentient red balloon. Stupidly, the boy befriends this balloon instead of running away in terror from this unholy object. Even though I was already reading Stephen King and grew up watching horror movies, none of that scared me as much as this terrifying tale of a stalker balloon. The ending is by far the worse when the boy is abducted by all the balloons of Paris and it ends with him flying high in the sky. Leaving one wondering what will happen next. Will a flock of birds fly into the balloons popping them? Or will the balloons abandon the boy and leave him to end up impaled upon the Eiffel Tower? I don't know how anyone can possibly find this movie artistic or charming. It's terrifying and to this day I really, REALLY hate balloons.

I used to show this movie to every child I taught. Even the special needs little ones, understood it. I didn't even use English subtitles, I let them speak in French, then we discussed it. I even have the book that I bought from a book fair! It's marvelous, light, and shows the innocence of children, the loyalty of friendship, and how kids can be mean to each other without understanding. There are always bullies! But this movie has a wonderful ending! You and your children will love the movie! I highly suggest that you watch it with them. Many times, I didn't even have to tell them what was going on...they guessed it! Even the my special needs little ones! It's a classic! Please watch this summer with your family!

Splendid short movie dealing with the fantasy world of children . A red balloon with a life of its own follows a little boy (Pascal Lamorisse , son of director Albert Lamorisse) around the streets of Paris . Balloon and young boy play together in the streets and slums of Paris and attempt to elude a band of boys that wants to explode the balloon . This timeless movie displays haunting and powerful scenes , it's plenty of frames which stay forever in the mind and there is almost no dialog spoken . The story is narrated with sensitivity and intelligence and is treated a simple adventure developed in great sense of ductility and fairness . In spite of runtime is short , this is a medium-length film, as the run is 35 minutes , it is entertaining , amusing and funny . The gentle humor developed in the film is clever and agreeable and dealing with fantastic as well as surrealist deeds . The plot is plain and simple though is only set in Parisian streets , it isn't dreary , neither boring but fun . Director tirelessly maintains the humorous ingenuity and including fantasy as when the balloon following the little boy around like a pet . Spectacular as well colorful finale when other balloons of various sizes and colors descend on the boy from all parts of Paris, and together they lift him into the sky and take him away over the horizon . Lively musical score is enjoyable and cheerful . The motion picture received awesome reviews and deserves the complete knowledge , acquiring an international reputation for its poetic quality ; receiving a grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and also winning an American Academy award. In fact , with its Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay, the film is the only short film to win an Academy award outside of the short film categories . The picture is nowadays considered to be an European cult film and it had one of the largest non-theatrical runs in the history of American cinema , as thousands of 16-millimeter prints were distributed to schools across the country. The motion picture was stunningly directed by Albert Mamorisse , he was born in Paris and was killed, at 58 , in a helicopter crash while shooting a documentary near Teheran . He was former photographer, he turned to directing short subjects in the late 40s, and 50s involving the childhood and fantastic events . His most successful movies were ¨Crin Blanc¨ (1953) also starred by his son Pascal Lamorisse and ¨The Red balloon¨ (1956) , the latter winning an Academy Award , as it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, even though it has little dialogue . In the early 60s he turned to feature length films such as ¨Bim¨ and "Stowaway in the Sky" equally starred by his son Pascal , but with considerably less success, then retreated to documentary shorts . His last picture was ¨Le Vent Des Amoureux¨ (1978), a visually stunning helicopter tour of Iran, was later edited from his notes and was nominated for an Oscar as best feature documentary for the Academy award ceremonies of 1979.

Some people found it creepy because of a balloon following a kid around on its own; while other people found it very charming. No matter what people think of the film, the Red Balloon was indeed beautiful to watch due to its visual effects and amazing cinematography. It also indeed had a great music score. The Red Balloon is a thirty four minute French short film directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse. The film is about the adventures of a young boy (Pascal Lamorisse) who one day finds a red balloon who has a mind of its own. At first, it might seem like a normal regular balloon, but the days that followed, the red balloon begin to catch the attention of not only the boy's parents, teacher, and classmates, but the whole Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris. The film catch the attention of a number of critics, and won numerous awards including an Oscar for Lamorisse for writing the best original screenplay in 1956. In my opinion, I wouldn't have gave them best original screenplay, because there were way better written screenplays in 1956 than this. Plus, the film has a little dialogue, so most of the screenplay was just describing how things should be shots. Not enough to be worthy best screenplay. Director Lamorisse used his children as actors in the film. His son, Pascal Lamorisse, was the boy and his daughter Sabine portrays a little girl with the blue balloon. I love the inquisitive looks from adults and children. It was the best thing in the film. I laugh my butt off, when somebody sees the red balloon following a kid around and he gives off the 'huh' look. I like how in the beginning, the red balloon almost hit some old lady in the face. The ending was a bit odd, and disturbing. Did the kid went to balloon heaven or something? Some critics see a Christ like metaphor ending to this film. The streets represent the post- World War 2 attitude of everybody. Everything is grey and dirty. Everybody is cruel and hateful. The balloon represent 'the spirit'. When the red balloon dies and its "spirit" is reborn in thousands of other balloons, there to rescue the boy and preserve his innocence. In my opinion, I really was hoping to see all the balloons take their revenge on the bullies, but it doesn't happen. Sadly, they just carry the boy away into the sky like he was dead. I think people are looking too much into the film. I didn't find any message of anti-war or pro-religion in this. The only thing I notice about the film is the Cinéma Pur (French for Pure Cinema). It was a great example of the avant-garde film movement which features films with vision and movement rather than dialogue full films. The film has great shots, but it clearly shown that they use multiples balloons for each shot. The size of the balloon, and length of the string different and changes throughout the film that it get annoying. The goal of the avant-garde movement was to create a cinema that focused on the pure elements of film like motion, visual composition, and rhythm. The film only success somewhat of its goal. By minimizing story and plot, focusing instead on visual concerns by using close-ups, dolly shots, montage, lens distortions, and other cinematic techniques, Red Balloon was just one simple movie that a lot of people can relate to. The film is fairy harmless. The film fails in some things. First off, the boy never go into a character arch. With the little dialogue he spoke, it sounds like the boy was very controlling of the balloon to the point, the red balloon felt very submissive. He was a bit cruel, and selfish to the balloon. Unwilling to share it with the other children, no wonder why he had bullies. He was even unwilling to allow the balloon to hang out with the blue balloon, if he meets the girl. He quickly pull the red balloon away from the blue balloon. It would had been a better film, if the red balloon and blue balloon ran away with each other, rather than the boy keeping it all for himself as if an abuse submissive slave. If only if he was willing to share the balloon, maybe the balloon wouldn't had commit suicide like it did. Clearly, I felt that the red balloon was very unhappy of its self by the end of the film. The movie was depressing and dull. He seems to get over the red balloon being gone way too quick in my opinion. Like he really didn't care. Talk about being gone, the whole neighborhood of Menilmontant is nearly no more, as poverty took its toll on the area. By the 1960s, the area was so bad, the Parisian government demolish the area as a slum-clearance effort. So this is one of the few movies left that show the pre 1960's Paris. The movie was really popular that it spawn sequels and remakes like 2007's Flight of the Red Balloon and 2010 and 2013's horror film, Red Balloon. The movie became so popular, that elementary schools around the world became to show it at schools, so a lot of school children watch this over the years. With each new generation, a group of new audience are able to watch this film, and view their opinion. My opinion states that, the red balloon was a pretty OK film, just wish it had more depth.