Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge

The reason to watch this movie is Juliette Binoche. She always appears pretty and mysterious to me, but this time, she is a mid-aged mother with blond hair, and does not look like my stereotype of her. I feel I am so superficial writing this...

I have some problems with the red balloon, as I still cannot understand why the director spent so much time on the balloon. It is round, does not have any sharp edges or corners, only floats up and down in the movie. It seems to follow the boy wherever he goes, it may have some connection with the boy, however, it does not express any kind of emotion.

I thought of 2 movie clips. One is the opening of "Forrest Gump". It starts with the feather flying around. The feather could go high, low, spinning around, fast and slow, and it tells the audience where the story happens, and gives a quick look of the town. It finally rests on the main character, Forrest (or on the ground and Forrest picks it up?), and the story officially starts. It is quite fun.

The second is from Bleu (also starring Juliette Binoche) when Olivier finally finds Julie and they talk in the cafe. Julie picks up a cube of sugar and dips one corner in the coffee, and we see the sugar turns white from brown. I did not realize the details of this clip until I watched the special features of the DVD. The director spent time to find the right brand of sugar so the sugar absorbs the right amount of coffee in exact the amount of time he needs on the screen, and that clip, showing only the coffee and sugar on the screen, indicates that Julie is still absorbed in her own world, not paying attention to Olivier at all.

Some movies aim to entertain, to make money, but I am sure some directors want to create arts, and show their creativities. No matter what, they choose the footages carefully, and make them a complete movie to present to the audience. There are just too many clips of the red balloon that finally I uttered to myself, oh not again. I'd love to know interpretation from the director what kind of voyage he wants the balloon to express, and the significance of it.

MM is right though. Since at the end of the movie, it says it pays tribute to the French movie, Red Balloon, released in 1956. I should dig out the movie and watch it.