The Red Balloon Analysis

Puppet as balloon in Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 short French film of ‘The Red Balloon’

Once upon a time in Paris there lived a little boy whose name was Pascal.

He had no brothers or sisters and he was very sad and lonely at home. Once he brought home a lost cat, and some time later a stray puppy. But his mother said animals brought dirt into the house, and so Pascal was soon alone again in his mother 's clean well-kept rooms.

Then one day, on his way to school, he caught sight of a fine red balloon, tied to a street lamp. Pascal laid his schoolbag on the ground. He climbed up the lamppost, untied the balloon, and ran off with it to the bus stop……….

About the Film

The Red Balloon is an enchanting story of Pascal, a small boy and

The objectness of the balloon that comes from being a thing that is being animated through entry, look and manipulation. According to Husserl, perception and imagination both take consciousness towards identifying objects in this world. Under perception, objects are encountered by consciousness whereas under imagination, the thing does not exist and is brought to our consciousness to be us. Therefore, the difference is more of nature and less of degree. This difference makes its self more and less apparent consistently and by doing so brings to life the character of the balloon. The visual similarities between the balloon and a beholder of consciousness are none. Yet, imagination takes over where perception fails in the establishment of the character.

Now, usually when you let a balloon go, it flies away. But Pascal 's balloon stayed outside the window, and the two of them looked at each other through the glass. Pascal was surprised that his balloon hadn 't flown away, but not really as surprised as all that. Friends will do all kinds of things for you.

This is also formed when the body of the balloon leaves its object by entering the action reaction paradigm of the little boy so that it could be converted to subject. The audience together with the maker of The Red Balloon establishes intelligence and co-presence in the balloon by converting its object to a subject for human perception. The balloon is the other of the filmmaker’s vision that has escaped the film makers mind. This would make the Balloon attached to the strings not the film makers mind, but an image of the film makers mind. There is an encounter of the other backed by a play of imagination and perception between the film maker, puppet balloon and the audience. The little boy who is the protagonist and the Paris suburb together with the near silent story line deliver the platform upon which the interplay is taking place. The film celebrates its self through a duality of existence and reality in