Le ballon rouge (1955)
(The Red Balloon)
Country: FR
Technical: Technicolor 34m
Director: Albert Lamorisse
Cast: Pascal Lamorisse
Synopsis:
A boy rescues a balloon from a lamp post and is followed everywhere by it, until it attracts the envy of his classmates.
Review:
Shot in a beautifully old-world Montmartre, with terrains vagues still in evidence, this archetypal children's short was garlanded with awards at the time and has lost none of its charm. The use of colour and nearly dialogue-free situations are perhaps its most memorable features, but it is a visual delight in every sense, and a time capsule of age-of-austerity Paris. It also has everything of the freshness with which the Nouvelle Vague would break three years later: these kids could have strayed from Antoine Doinel's classroom and, give or take the colour, the slices of Parisian life and characters, from the vitrier to the instituteur, are captured with documentary precision.
(The Red Balloon)
Country: FR
Technical: Technicolor 34m
Director: Albert Lamorisse
Cast: Pascal Lamorisse
Synopsis:
A boy rescues a balloon from a lamp post and is followed everywhere by it, until it attracts the envy of his classmates.
Review:
Shot in a beautifully old-world Montmartre, with terrains vagues still in evidence, this archetypal children's short was garlanded with awards at the time and has lost none of its charm. The use of colour and nearly dialogue-free situations are perhaps its most memorable features, but it is a visual delight in every sense, and a time capsule of age-of-austerity Paris. It also has everything of the freshness with which the Nouvelle Vague would break three years later: these kids could have strayed from Antoine Doinel's classroom and, give or take the colour, the slices of Parisian life and characters, from the vitrier to the instituteur, are captured with documentary precision.
(The Red Balloon)
Country: FR
Technical: Technicolor 34m
Director: Albert Lamorisse
Cast: Pascal Lamorisse
Synopsis:
A boy rescues a balloon from a lamp post and is followed everywhere by it, until it attracts the envy of his classmates.
Review:
Shot in a beautifully old-world Montmartre, with terrains vagues still in evidence, this archetypal children's short was garlanded with awards at the time and has lost none of its charm. The use of colour and nearly dialogue-free situations are perhaps its most memorable features, but it is a visual delight in every sense, and a time capsule of age-of-austerity Paris. It also has everything of the freshness with which the Nouvelle Vague would break three years later: these kids could have strayed from Antoine Doinel's classroom and, give or take the colour, the slices of Parisian life and characters, from the vitrier to the instituteur, are captured with documentary precision.