Day 226: "Could you hold my balloon while I'm in school?"

When I was in film school MANY years ago, my professors told me about a small French film by the name of Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon).  Being a cocky and somewhat confrontational student, I ignored their advice about seeing this movie and blew it off as yet another pretentious, high-minded French art film.  Being now older and a bit wiser, I decided to finally see Le Ballon Rouge.  Allow me to be the first to admit that I was being an idiot.  For a movie only lasting thirty four minutes, it's an extremely powerful story.  This actually won the Best Screenwriting, Original Screenplay Oscar in 1957, IN THE MAIN CATEGORY.  Not for being a short and not for being foreign, it won for simply being the best screenplay of that year.  Ironically, this Oscar winning screenplay also has abut three lines of dialogue throughout the entire piece.  A young Parisian schoolboy finds an enormous red balloon, and takes it with him.  Apparently, this balloon has a mind of its own and the boy and balloon strike up a very strong, yet completely unspoken friendship.  For an inanimate object, the director gets a lot of great acting out of the balloon.  From its fanciful flights creating mischief with adults, to the loyalty it demonstrates to the boy, this simple balloon is a marvelous character. 

This is a gem of a movie, and is the perfect argument that film is a valid art form.  Extremely charming and very powerful, Le Ballon Rouge is a magnificent story of the magic and purity of friendship.  Two friends looking out for and caring for each other in a special tale.  The entire family should see this one, as the youngsters will come away with one interpretation of the story, and the adults another, but both will find this a great movie all around.  See this movie, it is absolutely brilliant.  9.5/10

See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!