Curatorialist

The Red Balloon

The Red Balloon was made in 1956, but it seems timeless, doesn’t it? Like for a lot of people, the movie, its images and themes are indelibly etched into my brain, as much like a scar as a birthday. Somehow, all sadness I felt as a boy is captured in that film, but it’s not considered a sad film. I think most people would call it a “wonderful tale of childhood.” Yet, a child wanders the streets of Paris, terminally alone, befriended by an inanimate object that appears to be his only companion. Think of the destitute setting one has to create for a balloon to have such an impact on a child’s life. And it’s true, this is not the Paris from other childhood stories, or paintings. This is a gray and lonely Paris. This is Daniel’s Reseda. In fact, in more ways than one, The Karate Kid and The Red Balloon are inextricably related, although I contend that The Red Balloon is deceptively more bleak. Pascal is, of course, Daniel – the fatherless boy, and all that entails. The kids with the rocks are the Cobra Kai. The Blue Balloon girl is Ali (with an i).

In The Red Balloon, the story begins, and continues throughout, with a young Pascal walking alone through unforgiving streets, petting stray cats and hopping on trains. At least with Karate Kid, we were given the gift of exposition. With The Red Balloon, we are thrown into a near-apocalyptic scenario – a child too young to be on his own, living with his grandparents, managing his way through a city too big and mean for him. It is straight out of a Dickens novel. And because it’s a balloon that Pascal befriends, the bleakness of it all is enhanced. Because this is the true plight of children who feel abandoned – to find solace not in other humans, but in objects. The red balloon is our dollhouse, our action figure, our tree fort and our toy gun. Daniel learned a skill, found his calling and overcame his fears. Pascal was transported away via angelic balloons, skyward. Pascal suffers so greatly throughout the 3o minute film, it is only really offset by the stunning visual images of balloons. But imagine if it wasn’t a balloon. The heart breaks.

Consider the horrific sub-plots of the stories we grew up with: a fatherless Luke, an apocalyptic Mad Max, the other mad Max (of chasing dog with fork fame), the wandering Tramp and even the foster care children of Escape to Witch Mountain. Pascal’s balloon is Alice’s white rabbit, is Dorothy’s slippers, is Superman’s cape, is Kevin’s Time Bandits, is Hansel’s cookie and Gretel’s lollipop. It is little wonder that my class grew up with a vague, but nagging, sense of impending doom. It is not timeless, it is timely. It is my parents generation who get the credit for living in Depression Era’s fallout, but then they went ahead and made the books, movies, TV shows and comic books that sent us straight into a fear of the destitution that their parents actually lived through. And the latch key didn’t help. A sea of children floating through life, the land of the lost, neither gone nor present, gripping our strings, madly pushing buttons in our glass elevators and holding onto our floating fantasies with poignant desperation. Mr. Miyagi and Obi Wan, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.