The Red Balloon has delighted audiences – adults and children both – since its 1956 debut. The nearly wordless film packs a lot into its 34-minute runtime. In an elegant evocation of childhood, director Albert Lamorisse tells a story full of the wonder and heartbreak that comes with growing up. A young boy (played by the director’s son, Pascal), saves a red balloon that is tied to a pole. They become friends and the magical, sometimes mischievous balloon follows the boy to school, drawing the ire of his classmates. With an ending that is both tragic and sublime, The Red Balloon has been a critical mainstay for decades.
Even today, Lamorisse’s masterpiece doesn’t feel dated. Born in 1922, Lamorisse came to love film at a young age, going to North Africa in the mid-‘40s to shoot documentaries. He then made a pair of acclaimed short features: Bim the Donkey (1951) and White Mane (1953), both of which are available in the Criterion Collection’s recently released, The Red Balloon and Other Stories.
Winning the Grand Prix for Best Short Film at Cannes for White Mane pushed Lamorisse onto the level of artistic freedom only a handful of filmmakers experienced. Following an injury suffered during an avalanche, Lamorisse began to work in earnest on The Red Balloon, the film he would be best remembered for.
The short opens on a monochromatic Ménilmontant morning. We see a view of Paris that is under an oppressive layer of clouds. A cat rests on the deserted, cobblestone street. Enter the young boy, dressed all in gray. Spying the ensnared balloon, the boy climbs a pole and unties it. Somehow, magically, the balloon follows the boy to school, its scarlet skin standing in stark contrast against the muted city.
According to critic David Cairns, more than 25,000 balloons were used in the shooting of the short. Shot on a shoestring budget, Lamorisse had to improvise and operate with a fraction of the tools of a normal feature since much of his budget went to balloons. A good deal of the film’s action is also improvised. At one point, according to Cairns, it began to rain, and the boy asked a passer-by to shield the balloon with his umbrella. That shot made it into the film.
Modern audiences may scoff at a nearly 70-year-old movie featuring a boy and his best friend, a balloon. However, even today the movie magic it took for the balloon to rise, fall, bob and weave throughout the Parisian buildings on its own accord holds up. Though the balloon is attached to a wire, it is almost never visible.
But the wonder soon cedes to heartbreak as the boy’s cruel classmates conspire to crush his friendship with the balloon. We don’t need a motive. Children can be monsters. After a horrific chase, a gang of boys shoots down the balloon with a slingshot. Lamorisse allows the balloon to slowly deflate before a boy stamps on it. The hush that follows signifies this violation isn’t just the end of some balloon, but a death. But instead of sending us out of the film on such a devastating note, a cadre of balloons flock to the young boy and lift him up and away from the tragedy, carrying across the buildings of Paris.
Like the best children’s cinema – such as Watership Down and The Black Stallion – The Red Balloon joins with other stories tinged with loss and sadness in a pantheon of classics. In many ways, the end of Lamorisse’s life would share an eerie resonance with the ending of The Red Balloon. We never see what happens to the boy. We assume the balloons take him up and away, carrying him from the meanness of his world. Lamorisse would die in a helicopter crash at the age of 40 while filming a documentary in Iran in 1970. Pascal, who witnessed his father’s demise, would complete the film. But for Lamorisse, he lived his fantasy of being a filmmaker for a short time, flying above the buildings and the people and the cars. Just like the boy in The Red Balloon.
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