Here is something pretty rare — a movie that I have absolutely nothing more to say about than what I put in the short review. By all rights, I ought to like this. I like fantasy. I like balloons I even made a balloon film of my own back in the early 1990s — and I definitely appreciate the complexities of wrangling balloons, and how hard it is to make it appear that they aren’t being wrangled. But this…I don’t deny its cleverness or that it’s well made. Maybe it’s the cute musical score that hurts it. (The lousy condition of the print from which the DVD was made didn’t help. Surely, the Criterion disc looks better than this.) Whatever the case, The Red Balloon — for all its merits — doesn’t really work all that well for me.
Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present The Red Balloon Friday, Aug. 15, at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District (upstairs in the Railroad Library). Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com
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