What's a classic film? I think I found out yesterday when we took 6 of our Israeli grandkids between 7 and 11 to see "The Red Balloon." The book had been on our coffee table for a few months after my sister and I saw it and she bought it for the kids. It contains images from the original film, and almost entirely, except for the red balloon, in the grey tones of a poor gritty Paris neighborhood. I spied a one time only showing at 11AM on the last day of the Pesach vacation. So off we went to a small viewing room in the Jerusalem Theater complex to see 34 minutes of enchantment, conceived by Albert Lamorisse 52 years ago. So there we were, Max and me, seeing it again with the pleasure of return and six Hebrew-reading sabras reading subtitles and transfixed by Pascal Lamorisse, young son of the writer/director, who discovers and tames a gorgeous red balloon to be his loyal friend. I should not say more, but it wouldn't matter. Because knowing every word and moment of the tale diminishes nothing.
And when we left the theater, young women greeted each of us with a gift of a big red balloon on a stick.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment