The Red Balloon - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Since its first release in 1956, the film has generally received overwhelmingly favorable reviews from film critics. When issued in the United States, film critic for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther, hailed the simple tale and praised director Lamorisse, and wrote, "Yet with the sensitive cooperation of his own beguiling son and with the gray-blue atmosphere of an old Paris quarter as the background for the shiny balloon, he has got here a tender, humorous drama of the ingenuousness of a child and, indeed, a poignant symbolization of dreams and the cruelty of those who puncture them."

When The Red Balloon was re-released in the United States in late 2006 by Janus Films, Entertainment Weekly magazine film critic Owen Gleiberman, praised the film's direction and simple story line that reminded him of his youth, and wrote, "More than any other children's film, The Red Balloon turns me into a kid again whenever I see it... see The Red Balloon is to laugh, and cry, at the impossible joy of being a child again."

Film critic Brian Gibson wrote, "So far, this seems a post-Occupation France happy to forget the blood and death of Hitler's war a decade earlier. But soon people’s occasional, playful efforts to grab the floating, carefree balloon become grasping and destructive. In a gorgeous sequence, light streaming down alleys as children's shoes clack and clatter on the cobblestones, the red globe bouncing between the walls, Pascal is hunted down for his floating pet. The film's ballooning sense of hope and freedom is deflated by a fierce, squabbling mass. Then, fortunately, Lamorisse's film floats off, with the breeze of magic-realism, into a feeling of escape and peace, The Red Balloon taking hold of Pascal, lifting him out of this rigid, petty, earthbound life."

In a review in The Washington Post, critic Philip Kennicott had a cynical view of the film, and wrote, " place in a world of lies. Innocent lies? Not necessarily. The Red Balloon may be the most seamless fusion of capitalism and Christianity ever put on film. A young boy invests in a red balloon the love of which places him on the outside of society. The balloon is hunted down and killed on a barren hilltop–-think Calvary–-by a mob of cruel boys. The ending, a bizarre emotional sucker punch, is straight out of the New Testament. Thus is investment rewarded–with Christian transcendence or, at least, an old-fashioned Assumption. This might be sweet. Or it might be a very cynical reduction of the primary impulse to religious faith." The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on fifteen reviews."