The fantastical films of French director Albert Lamorisse often limn the boundaries between the earthly and the sublime, with his characters trying to flee or transcend the physical limitations and demands of the material world through flight or the spiritual world of the imagination. In his most famous film, the Palme d’Or-winning short The Red Balloon, Lamorisse presents this dichotomy in a most elemental fashion, with his camera following a young boy, Pascal (Pascal Lamorisse), as he traipses about Paris with a balloon that appears to have a mind of its own.
There’s a consistent levity to the film as both boy and balloon engage in various sorts of play as they wander aimlessly about town. Yet their frivolity is met with resistance from a world that devalues the importance of joy and imagination, both through adults that won’t let Pascal inside places with his balloon and...
There’s a consistent levity to the film as both boy and balloon engage in various sorts of play as they wander aimlessly about town. Yet their frivolity is met with resistance from a world that devalues the importance of joy and imagination, both through adults that won’t let Pascal inside places with his balloon and...
- 12/22/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
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