097 - The Red Balloon, 1956, France. Dir. Albert Lamorisse.

Friday, April 7, 2017

097 - The Red Balloon, 1956, France. Dir. Albert Lamorisse.

A little boy is walking to school.

The dawn haze glows on the Paris streets.

A cat slinks past on the damp sidewalk.  Steam rises in the distance.  The boy stops to pet the cat.

The boy descends the stone steps.  He sees something.  Stops at the next landing.  Looks up.  Studies.  He looks to check.  Puts down his briefcase.  Starts to climb.

He shinnies up the post.  Bracing his feet on the stone wall.  Standing on the upper ledge.

A red balloon.

He unties it.  Puts the string in his mouth.  Holds the balloon low.  Slides down the pole.

The boy walks past a market.  Potatoes for sale.  An older woman walks past.  Stops to turn back.  Looks.

He stands on the sidewalk awaiting the trolley bus.  A woman pulls him back from the curb.  The trolley bus comes.  Stops.  People embark.  The conductor stops him.  Shakes his head.  Shakes his finger.

The boy does not board the bus.  He runs.  Tries to make it to school on time.

The boy arrives at school.  The Ecole Communale de Garcons.

He knocks.  He rings the doorbell.  Finally, the door opens.

In the courtyard he asks the street sweeper, "Can you hold my balloon while I am in school?  Don't let it go!"

The man stands.  A broom in his hand.  A balloon in the other.  He looks as the boy scampers off.

The teacher looks out the window.  Sees the boy arriving late.  Takes note.

Leaves fall from the trees as the boy hurries inside.

The children exit.  One mother waits with an umbrella for her son.  The other children go the other way.

The boy exits.  He holds his balloon.

He walks the wet street.  He finds an older gentleman.  With beret and cane.  Speaks to him.  Places the balloon under the old man's umbrella.  They walk together.  Walk past Chez Hubert.  A restaurant.  Arrive at a door.  The man enters.  The boy waits.

The boy finds a woman passing by.  With a different style umbrella.  He runs to her.  Walks with her.  He finds a pair of nuns.  He finds a man in a khaki trenchcoat walking across a bridge above the Thames.  Policemen on horses.  With the clop, clop, clop.  Of the hooves.

He runs across a bridge alone.  The steam smoke of a steam train billowing above the bridge as the train passes beneath it.

He runs.  Freely.  Enters a building.  Enters a door.

A woman looks out a window.  His mother?  The maid?

From the fourth floor she opens the balcony door and releases the balloon.

The balloon does not float up to the sky.

It hovers.

Stays outside the window.

As if knowingly waiting for the boy.

The boy opens the window door.  Receives the balloon again.

A new morning.

The boy speaks to the balloon.

"Balloon.  You must obey me.  You must be good!"

This time he will leave the balloon waiting for him, floating outside his window.  And return to it after school.

The boy exits the building.  Ready to walk to school.  The balloon follows him.  The balloon is now his friend.

A dog barks the balloon up the steps.

The boy hides behind a corner.  Seizes the balloon again when it turns the corner.

When they get to the trolley bus, the boy lets go of the balloon.  It rises into the air so that the boy can board the bus.

It follows the bus.

Follows the boy to school.

The children laugh.  A living balloon!  They try to catch it.  It will not let them catch it.

It waits outside as the boy and the children enter the courtyard.  And enter the school.  It floats over the wall into the courtyard.  Tries to enter the building.  It cannot.  It waits outside.

A man, a principal type, an authority figure, tries to catch it.  It will not let him.  It enters through an upper window.  The man brings the boy outside.  Takes him to his office.  Locks him in!

The boy is locked alone inside an office during the school day.

The balloon chases the man as he walks.  Pesters him.  Annoys him.  Bothers him.

The boy watches out the window as the children run outside.  They are fee.  He is not.

Two man talk.  Discuss what to do.  The balloon hovers above them.  It follows the principal as he returns to the office.  Unlocks the door.  Lets the boy leave.

"Get lost, you little pest."  The man says to the boy.

The boy walks home.  The balloon goes with him.  Today it is not raining.  They walk through the flea market.

The boy looks at a painting of a girl.  She is about his age.  About his height.  An imaginary friend.

The balloon goes shopping.  Looking at items while the boy looks.

They leave.  They pass a real girl on the sidewalk.  Holding a blue balloon.

The red balloon escapes the boy's grasp to chase the blue balloon.  The boy retrieves it.

The blue balloon escapes the girl's grasp to chase the red balloon.  The girl retrieves it.

Three bully boys stand waiting for the boy to pass.  They follow him.  Chase him up a flight of steps.

An entire regiment of boys await at the top of the steps.  They rain down on him.

The balloon escapes.  Floats above them all.  The boy escapes.  The bully boys watch as he goes into his apartment building.  And retrieves his balloon through the open window.

His mother takes him.  Takes him to a building.  The balloon follows.  Enters.  We watch from outside.

A guard exits.  Dressed like an army sentry.  Chases the boy away.  Gestures to his befuddled mother.

The boy stops at a bakery.  Eyes the pastries.  Salivates.  Puts his hand in his pocket.  Pulls out money.

Four bully boys arrive.  Eye the pastries.  See the balloon through the corner windows.

The balloon makes a tactical mistake.  It does not see the boys around the corner.

They seize it!

Grab it by the string.  Throttle it.  Run away.

The boy emerges with his éclair.  Treating.  Happy.  But where is his balloon.

The larger group of bully boys scale a wall.  They have the balloon by a second string.  A long one.  A kite string.

The boy walks into an open field.  He looks to the sky.  Looks for his balloon.

The bully boys have it high in the air.  High by the kite string.  They throw rocks at it.  Shoot rocks from slingshots.

The balloon comes over the wall.  The boy takes it by its own string.  The short string.  The bully boys pull the kite string.  A tug of war.

The balloon slips off its kite string.  Frees itself.  Goes with the boy.

The boy runs.  The bully boys chase him.  Chase him and his balloon.

Down streets and through alleys.

With the taste of blood on their lips.

Or helium.

The clop, clop, clop of the shoes on the cobbled stones bespeaks the boy's urgency.

The alleys grow narrower.  The situation grows grim.  The bully boys' close in.

The boy is trapped.  Surrounded by bully boys.

They pile on the boy.  Stop him from running.  Hold him down.

The red balloon can sense defeat.  It breaks out in some kind of balloon rash.  Loses its ability to fly.  Hovers slowly more closely to the ground.

It touches down.

A boy stomps on it.  Bursts it.  Kills it.

Somewhere in the city two twins are walking, each with his own balloon.  The balloons leave their hands and fly away.  Another boy loses his.  A girl.  Another.  And another.

From all across the city the balloons escape.  Balloons of all colors.  Heed the call.  Come to the aid of their fellow balloon.  And its boy.

Images of the city from overhead.  Brightly colored balloons floating above the dull-toned city.

Hundreds of balloon descend upon the boy.  Now standing alone in the field.

They comfort him.  Surround him.  Love on him.  He gathers their strings.  Holds on.

They lift him.

Lift him above the city.

The boy flies above the city holding on to his hundred balloons.

Flies ever higher.

Up into the sky.