Elsa watched her first double feature last night. Her first SUBTITLED double feature, that is! The Red Balloon was a book I grew up with, based on the 1956 French short film. So I knew the balloon would get popped at the end of the film, and I prepped her for it. The "bad kids" with their slingshots finally catch up to Pascal and his balloon and let fly. What I didn't remember is that the "pop" is not a "pop" at all but rather a slow leak. So Elsie and I are sitting there watching this brilliant red balloon slowly deflate and drop to the earth, then get stomped on by a kid. It was the longest minute of my life.
But White Mane was worse. A little French boy named Folco befriends a horse (think The Black Stallion) and in the end has to flee with the horse from some crazy French cowboys from Camargue. The cowboys inadvertently force them to jump into a river and they are swept out to sea where, "...horse and man can ride together...FOR ALL TIME!" The film ends with the cowboys pleading with the boy to turn back, but he can't. You see the boy and horse's head bobbing over the whitecaps, fading into the distance until the credits roll. Since I had translated the whole movie for Elsa I quickly told her that the boy was simply swimming out "into the bay" so he could "fish some more with White Mane". I hope she was ignoring the wailing, regretful cries of the French cowboys.
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