Le ballon rouge
France, 1956, 36 minutes, color
Le Ballon rouge, a medium-length film directed by Albert Lamorisse in 1956, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956, the Oscar for best screenplay in 1957, the Louis Delluc Prize in 1956, the BAFTA Special Prize in 1957 and was named Best Film of the Decade at the Educational Film Awards.
Beyond its success among critics and in international festivals, the film was hugely successful in its many releases in theaters in France and abroad. It has become a cult film for several generations of children worldwide.
The film was also ahead of its time in terms of special effects.
synopsis
Le ballon rouge is about the friendship between a little boy and a magical balloon in Paris in the 1950’s. A boy frees a red balloon tied to a streetlight. To the surprise of the neighborhood, the balloon follows him in the streets of Paris, making the other children jealous.
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Crin-Blanc is a medium-length film that won the Short Film Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953, and the Jean Vigo Prize.
It has often been screened with Ballon Rouge, by the same director.
Albert Lamorisse’s cinematography captures the magnificent landscapes of the wild Camargue region and the daily life of people and animals with exemplary naturalism.
synopsis
In the south of France is a near-desert region called La Camargue.
Crin-Blanc is a magnificent stallion, leader of a herd of wild horses that are too proud to let themselves be broken in by humans. Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship will grow between the boy and the horse. Together, they go looking for the freedom that humans won’t let them have.
critics
“A whole review might be written on the pictorial eloquence in this film. There are absolutely stunning shots of horses and men, and there’s a sense of a boy’s wild-bird spirit blending with the tameless heart and strength of a mighty horse that moves one to emotional raptures that are seldom got from a film.”
Bosley Crowthern, The New York Times
“[…] a tender, humorous drama of the ingenuousness of a child and, indeed, a poignant symbolization of dreams”
Bosley Crowthern, The New York Times
"We will never be grateful enough to Lamorisse. Crin-Blanc and Ballon Rouge are among the “things of beauty” that Keats spoke of, that are “a joy forever.” With the eyes of a ten-year-old, wide open with dreams and wet with tears, we followed the dazzling horse in the sea, or the enchanted balloon in the sky.”
Marie Noëlle Tranchant, Le Figaro
A word from Pascal Lamorisse, son of the director
“By restoring these films to their original glory, I wanted to pay homage to the memory of my father who was an understanding friend, poet and tender parent.
Dusting off this footage takes us back in time, to the essential things in life:
emotion, love and a taste for independence. This return to grace is a distilled memory of the intense joys of my childhood!”