IMDb plot summary: A red balloon with a mind of its own follows a little boy around the streets of Paris.
Directed by Albert Lamorisse. Stars Pascal Lamorisse, Sabine Lamorisse, and Georges Sellier.
The Red Balloon is a French fantasy short film about a young boy with a red balloon that turns out to have some sentience of its own, and the two wander around the city together. This was a family favorite that I had somehow never seen, so I was excited to finally have the nudge to see it. Like most short films, I had trouble processing it as a full story, even when the narrative does build in intensity toward the end. As a sweet little series of scenes of a boy and his magical balloon, it's charming but did not fully grab me. I was most engaged by the final moments of the film when the story became a little bit less episodic and a little bit more narratively linear. For being only a half hour, it felt very slow. For some people that is definitely a point in its favor, but it worked against it a little bit. So this one falls right in the middle: a sweet little film that doesn't really reach me.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Red Balloon (1956)
beat Anonymous (#1997 → #1999)
lost to South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (#997 → #988)
beat Prometheus (#1496 → #1498)
lost to The Birds (#1245 → #1239)
beat Moonstruck (#1371 → #1396)
beat The General (#1307 → #1448)
lost to 21 Up (held at #1276)
lost to Barbie (#1291 → #1014)
beat A Man Called Otto (#1299 → #1310)
lost to The Spy Who Loved Me (#1295 → #1292)
beat Seven Chances (#1297 → #1314)
beat The Abyss (#1296 → #1298)
📊 Ranked #1214/3999 on my Flickchart
🎯 Flickscore™: 70