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was still cold in Paris in early February. It is no wonder that the Chinese calendar year has not yet arrived, and it is still the middle of winter. The sky was gloomy, and there were half-frozen raindrops that fell yesterday—it's really snowing, but the cold and wet is uncomfortable. In short, this is not a good season to visit Paris.
And the street I was walking on at this time was not a scenic spot that tourists were interested in visiting. Before coming to Paris, I had checked this place on the map and had a little idea. The host of the banquet last night asked me what to watch today. I named Menilmontant, and the host frowned in confusion: "I'm not familiar with that area. I just heard that there are many new immigrants living there... Know how Are you going?" I said yes, the No. 2 subway goes north, the next stop at the tomb of Father Lachaise. He nodded reassuringly, not asking curiously. We all cast our eyes to the night scene outside the window: the Seine flows quietly, the river cruise ship glides silently but beautifully like a ship of bright jewels, the wounded hospital on the other side stands in the twinkling streamer and the cold winter night sky In between, it became more and more splendid, and the iron tower with soft light in the distance was like a mirage.
At this moment, I was walking on the streets of Menilmontant, such an ordinary Thursday, such an ordinary street scene of pedestrian shops and hawkers... It was a completely different world from the gorgeous night scene last night. The appearance of the people at home on weekdays was what I expected, but I couldn’t find any familiar sights—out of the subway station and standing on the street, I had a brief hesitation, wondering if I had found the right place.
God knows if I'm in the right place? Whether the scene I'm looking for is here, which part of the road or where the corner is, whether it's still there after forty or fifty years... all are unknown. And it was fun for me to come here to "look for", but now that I've really come here, I'm not familiar with the road of life and it's freezing cold, so I'm a little stupid to think about it.
It started with an old movie and a little boy.
A few years ago, I happened to see a film on a public television channel one day. It had already been played for the most part, and there was no dialogue, but it was kind, lovely and imaginative; I finished watching it, and the impression remained in my mind for a long time. Not long ago, it was very accidental, in a rental video store, on the unpopular shelf of "foreign films", I came across this short film: "Red Balloon", produced in France in 1952, directed by Albert Lamorisse, The film is thirty-four minutes long. I immediately rented it home, recorded it, and enjoyed it with the kids.
The story is very simple: a little boy picked up a beautiful red balloon on his way to school one day. Children take the balloon to school and home, lovingly cherishing it all the way. Gradually, he discovered that this balloon had spirituality: he would not fly away when he let go, accompanied the little boy everywhere, and would play hide-and-seek with him, just like a cute and loyal puppy. The balloon also caused some trouble for the little boy, such as when taking the bus, going to school or church, but it only deepened the friendship between the two: the balloon became the lonely little boy's best friend.
A group of older urchins, envious of the little boy owning such a beautiful balloon, took advantage of the opportunity to steal it, but the clever balloon escaped back to the boy. The urchins were so embarrassed that they were even more reluctant to rest. They were ambushed in the streets and alleys, chasing the boy and the balloon without a way to escape. As a result, the red balloon fell into the hands of the urchin again. The poor little boy watched helplessly as his beloved balloon became the target of the urchins' slingshots, was shot all over the body, shriveled and collapsed to the ground... and finally got a kick.
Then a miracle happened. Suddenly, all the balloons in Paris, colorful, one by one, from the hands of the children, from the park, from the stalls selling balloons... all flew to one place: the red balloon that no longer had life, and the sitting A little boy crying beside. Hundreds of balloons fell on the boy's head, more and more, and he was pleasantly surprised to catch them one by one. Many, many balloons, carrying the boy, slowly rose, drifting across the streets and rooftops, and drifting into the distance of the Paris sky...
I originally showed it to 12-year-old Ming'er, but I didn't expect it was 2-year-old Qing'er who fell in love with red balloons.
The film has only background music and no dialogue, except that at the end the boy calls out to his balloon - and the English and French pronunciation of "balloon" is very similar. The two-year-old Qinger can fully identify with the little boy's relationship with the balloon (perhaps better than adults), and also vaguely understand the little boy's daily activities, occasionally identifying objects in the movie with his limited vocabulary. Children like to repeat; they have to listen to the story again, and watch the movie again. Not only do they not get bored, but they love it even more because of the familiarity and predictability. It is a must-see every day, and sometimes it’s like listening to it at night. Like a bedside story, I can see the extent to which I fell asleep.
This made me curious about the film, and I found some relevant information: it turned out that the screenwriter and director of the film were all Lamorisse, and even the protagonist who played the little boy was his six-year-old son Pascal. This film won the Best Original Screenplay from the Film Academy. Award, the Cannes Film Festival Award, and the "Best Film of the Decade" award from the Educational Film Institute Association. The filming location was of course Paris, and it was concentrated in the Menilmontant district, and the director also thanked the children in the district (presumably the classmates who played the little boy and the extras who played the urchins) in the opening sequence - also humorous and affectionate " Thanks to balloons all over Paris".
Accompanying Qing’er to watch the red balloons over and over again, strangely enough, I didn’t get bored, but became interested in the homely street scenes in the film. Different from those famous places of interest that outsiders are familiar with, this place is beautiful and simple, almost a little cold -
it is the nostalgic years, the early 1950s, only a few years after the war, and the vitality has not recovered yet. . After more than 40 years, this place must have a different appearance, but there should still be some buildings that remain the same, such as the one-tower spire church that the boy went to with his grandmother, the lively masonry street, the apartment building where the boy lived, his School... I suddenly had an interesting idea: I will have a trip to Paris soon, but unfortunately I can't take Qinger with me. If I can find a scene like a movie there, take some pictures and bring it back, and I will wait for Qinger to come back. When he is older, he can tell him that his mother found the home of the red balloon for him!
With the idea in mind, I unfolded the map of Paris, and it was easy to find an avenue and a side street called Menilmontant, and the subway station there was also of the same name; more coincidentally, there was a church with a single spire nearby, and the church behind it was named Menilmontant. There is a railway - there is a scene in the film where a boy is holding a balloon on an overpass to watch the train pass under his feet. The white smoke temporarily obscures the red color of the balloon... That's right, most likely it is!
However, once I was “in the realm” and there was no sense of déjà vu, my confidence and interest were shaken.
Walking along Menilmontant Avenue, I tried desperately to recall the width of the road in the movie, the shape of the buildings on both sides, and I couldn't associate it with these featureless buildings that were neither new nor old, neither ugly nor beautiful. - There's even a McDonald's at the intersection. As for the pedestrians on the street, of course, the children in the movie, the grandmother, the teacher, the nun, the peddler, the policeman on horseback, etc. are not to be seen in the movie, but as a friend said last night, there are many immigrants who are obviously not locals—— Of course, it is completely different from the foreign tourists who are flooded with historical sites. The "foreigners" here are clearly living and making a living.
So I moved the camera on my shoulder to my chest, covered it with a windbreaker, so that I would not look dazzling among the crowd, and then slowly walked towards a market that caught my eye.
There is also a flea market in the movie. The little boy stops in front of an oil painting of a beautiful little girl about his age. As for the red balloon, I found a full-length mirror, and excitedly rose and fell in front of the mirror to appreciate myself.
The bazaar has no clunk but has a barrier and is much larger. When I walked from the beginning to the end, I realized that it occupies half of a street, and the length is exactly between two subway stations. Most of the goods sold by the vendors are food - basically a vegetable market with daily necessities such as clothes and shoes in between. Skinned whole sheep, lively poultry and fresh fish need not be mentioned, and there are many kinds of exotic vegetables, fruits and spices marinated and cooked. Because there are immigrants from all over the world, the goods are very international and colorful, just as interesting as the sellers and the buyers; the language of barking and bargaining is various and difficult to identify. I was busy looking at things, people, obedient (occasionally caught a few accents), converting and comparing the prices of civilian materials... I was so dazzled that I soon forgot the purpose of coming here. It was not until I walked through the whole market, walked out of the crowd of people, and was blown by the cold wind, that I remembered the red balloon. I hurriedly took out the map to identify the direction, and decided to go to the church and the railway - the only place I was more certain was left.
The roads in Paris are hard to find, even if you follow the map, it is not easy, because it is neither neat nor regular, and even the buildings are not square, often a triangular building emerges from the slanting thorns, the sharp corner points at you, and the two split. Fork in the road is enough to hurt your brain for a long time to choose. I walked carefully along Rue De Menilmontant leading to the church. The name of the road with the suffix montant is neither high nor steep. It was hard to walk uphill against the cold wind. At a glance, I was pleasantly surprised to see the apartment building where the little boy lived, the balcony with beautifully decorated iron railings waiting for the red balloons to float outside... Unfortunately, all of them are half-old and uncharacteristic shop buildings, lively and lively. Market signs in various languages are displayed, the roads are full of cars, and the sidewalks are lined with goods overflowing from shops. This is certainly not the laid-back neighborhood street of forty or fifty years ago.
It took two wrong cross streets to see the silhouette of the church. I walked around in front of it nervously, stood a little further away and looked at it again; then I closed my eyes and compared the two sets of shots in my mind: one, looking out from the door of the church, the little boy and his grandmother were walking towards the church, The balloon followed; secondly, looking at the church from where I was standing, the red balloon floated in hesitantly to look for the little master, but it was all thrown out by the church deacon...
Opening my eyes, I think I've finally found the right place. Raising the camera with frozen hands, framed the image of the church—excluding the narrow streets and scribbled buildings around it, the church looked majestic and majestic, just like in the movie.
I pressed the shutter: one, another... Qinger, can you recognize this place?
Going further back from the church side, it is a somewhat secluded residential area, with half-old low-cost apartments arranged irregularly, and there is no historic building at all. After wandering around for a while among these completely unfamiliar streets, I finally came to a small pedestrian land bridge with a train railway underneath. I raised the camera excitedly, and put it down again—it was no longer the straight and beautiful fence that blocked the bridge on both sides, but the iron mesh with dense perforations, making it impossible to take pictures through it. Is it to prevent people from littering what kind of things go down, even the fence can't stop it?
Hesitantly, I turned back in the direction of the church, and then turned back to the street. The words "catch the wind" and "catch the shadow" popped up in my mind, and at this moment, the meaning was so apt that I smiled, not without self-deprecation. It's stupid enough to look for a fictional movie story scene, let alone that it was nearly half a century ago... Space and time are no longer human; and I am neither admiring the name nor visiting the old, it can only be ——Even if it is a movie fan mother to send a childlike innocence to her movie fan baby!
Another day, we were invited to dinner with our friends in an elegant and comfortable restaurant in the old town. After two rounds of wine, a friend asked if I could go to Menilmontant? I replied that I had been there, and then I told the reason why I liked the movie "Red Balloon" and Qinger surprisingly... My friend opened his eyes wide while listening, and after hearing it, he gave a pleasant "Ah—" and then said eagerly: "I saw that movie when I was a child, and it left a deep impression on me, and I have never forgotten it—I remember the balloon, the little boy, and the sad and wonderful ending..." The person who spoke had the Parisian smugness on his face. His expression was gradually replaced by a tenderness. Staring at him, I thought of the boy in the movie who was only six years old at the time, and now he is fifty, the same age as the man in front of him. And what about the director dad who created it all? Are you still alive? He would never know that the world he created with his camera lens was so well preserved that two-year-old Qinger and a fifty-year-old Frenchman who had never met before would share the same world. of good memories. Magical balloons, magic lanterns!
Looking away from the face of the friend who was immersed in childhood memories, he looked out the window and found that snow had drifted outside. Thin snow fell from the night sky, where hundreds of balloons flew by on a sunny autumn day many years ago. Every little boy who saw that scene will always remember it. And now, snow is falling on the streets of Menilmontant, on the spires of churches, and possibly on the roof of Pascal, a 50-year-old boy... and every one who has had and lost a beauty in childhood adults and children with red balloons, in their sleep and memories, the snow falls quietly.
——The first time I saw this movie was five years ago, in the classroom. That year, Beijing suffered a sweltering heat that had not been seen in many years, and the air was filled with dull heat. The video tape rustled, and on the rough screen, a little boy and a big red balloon shuttled through the streets of the small town. The balloon was so beautiful, so red, like a little heart in the sky.
One evening not long ago, I went to buy a disc with my friends, and inadvertently, it appeared on the crowded shelf.
I want to secretly hide this big red balloon in the bottom of my heart, wait until my child is two years old, and then secretly release it and let them play together. Then, on the morning of his birthday, when he opened his eyes and opened the door, he would see so many red balloons, tied together with strong ropes, and we, with them, went shopping together...
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