Am I the only one who thought this movie was good?

No! LOL! I luckily was off work sick when this came on. I hadn't seen it in YEARS! I just happened to be scanning the channel menu and saw that it was coming on. I never saw it before with subtitles. The visual storytelling was enough to know what was going on.

[deleted]

Some 37% of people rated it '10' and it won an Oscar, so I think we can safely say that you are not the only one who thought this movie was good.

It's a wonderful film but there is no dialogue and it only runs 34 minutes so I suspect some people won't like it. But what a wonderful story, Lamorisse receiving the Oscar for best origianl screen play. He had a film with his son Pascal and his daughter Sabine to enjoy though sadly he died in 1970.

I was hoping Janus would release a DVD but I haven't seen one.
A great story that children can enjoy too.

When I used to teach drama on the secondary level, I showed this movie every year. Even without dialogue, loud special effects, etc, it captivated my students and held their attention.

Well, I think you can see from the above posts kellyleighcrutcher that you certainly are not alone in enjoying this movie.

I am one of those who think it's brilliant. I, like you, saw it for the first time when I was quite young and was worried it would have lost some of it's "magic" with the passage of time and the increase of my age ( tastes do change and I've sometimes re-watched movies and TV shows that I loved when I was a kid, but, now find awful - bad acting, directing, script, special effects etc ) but The Red Balloon has stood the test of time for me. Just beautiful.

It obviously does require a certain amount of "suspension of disbelief". I get to the end and realise I've being sobbing over a piece of rubber filled with air. Lol. I also tear-up at the end of The Railway Children and although the characters in that are human, they are fictional rather than "real".

This movie was good!

I also saw this movie when I was a grade school child. I felt like crying when they "killed" the red balloon! I know it was a fantasy but when you are a kid you think everything is magic and even inanimate things can have a life! It was so nice and wholesome a movie. I could relate to the boy being tormented by bullies who want to destroy everything that is good!

THE RED BALLOON (“le ballon rouge” 1956)
Written & Directed by Albert Lamorisse
34 min

1956 Cannes Best Short Film
1957 Academy Award Best Original Screenplay

1st VIEW 1/26/10
The film immediately captured me with a palate of warm, subdued colors. Having been born in France in 1956, this was a window to the world I first entered, a simpler time in rich contrast to the electronically paced sensory overload I’m now surrounded by. I followed the boy through the streets of Paris as this story unfolded.

The boy, given no name, walks alone through the streets wearing a strange, pale blue suit that looks like sweats, and carries a small attaché’. We soon learn he’s on his way to school. Along the way he finds a red balloon trapped on a streetlamp, and he rescues it. At first, he’s attracted only to the diversion of a brightly colored object that can float on the air. He finds some people are annoyed by the diversion it creates, others are amused, and some even envious. He’s denied boarding on the bus because of the balloon, which makes him late for school. The balloon is again rejected by the school and sent outside, when a kindly man holds the balloon for the boy. When he gets home his grandmother rejects the balloon and sets it free. It is then that he discovers that the balloon has intent and can control its own movement. The balloon waits for him and follows him playfully. A friendship develops, and the desire to escape his loneliness replaces the simple attraction of the novelty. The friendship is demonstrated through loyalty, how the boy protects the balloon from other children who wish to possess or pop it, and how the balloon follows only this boy, comes when it’s called, and continues to come back to him when they are separated. The balloon even harasses the schoolmaster who locks the boy up in solitary confinement for his disruption.

The story plays through a series of conflicts created by their relationship. First it is the simple consequences of the balloon being a disruption on the bus and in school, but then we see gangs of other children seeking to capture and then destroy the balloon. The undertone is that they resent the boy, not the balloon, it is simply an easy target, or so they believe. The boy is contrasted to the other children in several ways, and it appears that he holds a different status which is not explained but only suggested. He wears this funny little suit, with long pants, while all the other boys wear shorts. He’s alone, while the others are in groups. He carries the small attaché to school, appearing the young adult to the unruly gangs of youths.

Finally, the balloon is struck by a thrown object, and slowly deflates until stomped on by one of the children. For most of the film the balloon was threatened, so this is the unhappy resolution to the main conflict, but the boy’s journey is not yet over. We next see ALL the balloons of Paris fly from the grasp of their owners or tethers and converge on the saddened boy. He grabs as many as he can and is lifted away, over the city, above the petty indecencies of the children and adults below.

I enjoyed the film; it was thoughtful but not obvious, leaving me to determine its meaning in the context of my own life.