Who’d have thought that the humble red balloon would feature in so many things, I was doing a bit of research into famous red balloons and found more than I expected.
Did you know that the red balloon is a movie star? It first appeared in a short film in 1956, written and directed by Albert Lamorisse, called Le Ballon Rouge (aka The Red Balloon). The thirty-four minute film (which has sound but no dialogue) is set in Montmartre, Paris, and follows the adventures of a young boy, Pascal, who finds a large red balloon. The balloon has a mind and will of its own, following Pascal wherever he goes, floating outside his bedroom (as Pascal's mother won't allow it in the house). In their wanderings around Paris, Pascal and the balloon encounter a gang of bullies, but tragedy is replaced by a magically happy ending. Lamorisse won the Palme d'Or du court métrage at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival and the 1956 Academy Award for Original Screenplay for his film.
The Red Balloon reappeared in 2000 in a spoof sequel called Revenge Of the Red Balloon where it returns to hunt down and seek revenge on the bullies who burst it's ancester all those years ago.
Of course probably the best known reference to the red balloon is the 80’s pop song with a political message – 99 Red Balloons by Nena Hagen (or to give it it’s original title 99 Luftballons). The song came during a period of escalating rhetoric and strategic manoeuvring between the United States and the Soviet Union. In particular, its chart success coincided with the Able Archer 83 crisis. The Soviet Union misread a NATO exercise as an actual preparation for a nuclear strike and activated its own weapons for a pre-emptive strike, creating a tense situation in which World War III might indeed have started by mistake.
The English translation of "99 Luftballons" (titled "99 Red Balloons") was not a literal translation. Nena topped the UK Singles Chart with this version for three weeks from 28 February 1984. She never charted again in the U.K., and has been nominated in the "Channel 4" poll, "The 50 greatest one hit wonders of all time".
Amongst Other places named after Red Balloons is The Red Balloon Learner Centre, often referred to as the Red Balloon or Herbert House. It is a specialist learner centre in Cambridge, United Kingdom, which provides a safe full-time learning environment for children aged eleven to sixteen who have been so badly bullied they are unable to attend mainstream schools. It is a registered charity.
You may have noticed lots of references to flickr on the balloon blog and not to be left out flickr has it’s own group dedicated to The Red Balloon which I was very proud to have got a mention in. So in honour of all the famous Red Balloons that have gone before I thought I’d see if one of my own balloons could find it’s way into the pages of history so I sent it on it’s travels to see how far it can go and who it gets to meet along the way.
I attached a tag with a little bit of information about where it had started it’s journey from and my contact details and released it from our old High Street shop on 04/05/06 at about 3pm in the afternoon. Hopefully whoever finds it will contact me and let me know where it got to, so if you happen to come across a little red balloon please drop me an email and let me know where you found it. I'll keep you posted in the balloon blog and let you know as soon as it’s been found.
(Some of the information in this post has been sourced from Wikipedia and The Internet Movie Database)
