The Red Balloon (1957)

Excellent adaptation.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Delightful fantasy piece. Make of the fable what you will, but the balloon certainly brings a sense of camaraderie to the child - protection from bullies both young and old. And its brightness contrasts with the drabness of his home and neighbourhood. And where are his parents? Wonderful street scenes of the Paris of 1956.

Last time I watched this film, I was a school kid and watched it on a black and white television. So it was more the grey balloon. Now many years later I got the opportunity to watch it in high definition. It certainly rekindled memories of my younger days and the film certainly retains it charms, in fact its power and influence has grown.Having visited Paris many times, it seems rather eerie to see the Paris of yesteryear, much of which no longer exists with very few recognizable picture postcard scenes of the city. The film is simple, charming but with a technical brilliance as the filmmakers used thin wires to control the balloon.The plot involves a young boy who finds a bright red balloon and it simply starts to follow him everywhere with seemingly sentient abilities. Soon other kids want to take it away from him and even destroy it. The film has little dialogue and a good use of music and colour.The film might be deemed to be a parable, the importance of friendship and might also have religious overtones. The boy, who happens to be the director's son is charming. This short film deserves its reputation and all the awards it won.

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.

I know a lot of people loved this movie but as a kid I didn't. It seemed boring and dreary. The lack of dialog and the spare gray streets made the movie seems desolate. The balloon looked weird not like any balloon I knew as a kid. The bullying seemed cruel and unmotivated. A balloon seemed like a pathetic friend that was neither very fun. The death of the red balloon was genuinely sad. The supposed liberating resolution did not make up for it. In fact it was scary and left me wondering if the boy fell to his death, was suspended in the sky forever or was taken some place far away with no way to take care of himself. I also felt sad for all the kids that were deprived of their balloons when they all flew to the boy. It seemed unfair.