I have this as the adjoining feature to my DVD "The Red Balloon"' both written by Lamorisse. This is obviously in colour, while White Mane is in quite high-key black and white and this could have been to contrast the very different subjects and their treatment.
Often colour film stock is shot at the time as it's relatively easy to get a monochrome version from it but impossible the other way around.
It does work very well, though. And, to my mind and especially immediately after watching Red Balloon (for the 4th time) it had extra resonance.
The Balloon takes on a life of its own and gets captured, cornered, like an animal (I think of it as the boy's pet dog, obediently following him, as in Disney films of old) and on its expiration, a "pack" of fellow rubbery spherical objects gather together and rescue the boy from the bullies.
Similarly, the white stallion denotes freedom. It's wild, when very few horses, anywhere in the world, are. And, yet this is modern(ish) southern France, the Carmague. Schoolboy geography told me it to be a place of special beauty, for its flamingos and, yes, the horses.
As with any western, baddie guys want to round up and imprison this symbol of beauty and freedom. The un-tamable. Only this lad can - and does. After injury in a fight with an incoming stallion, our horse reaches to the lad for help with its injuries.
The final scenes are open to interpretation but to my mind are exactly as the boy in Red Balloon. But the outcome is exactly the opposite. Both the horse and the boy knew of their fate but free, together, they can never be captured. Nor their souls.
Often colour film stock is shot at the time as it's relatively easy to get a monochrome version from it but impossible the other way around.
It does work very well, though. And, to my mind and especially immediately after watching Red Balloon (for the 4th time) it had extra resonance.
The Balloon takes on a life of its own and gets captured, cornered, like an animal (I think of it as the boy's pet dog, obediently following him, as in Disney films of old) and on its expiration, a "pack" of fellow rubbery spherical objects gather together and rescue the boy from the bullies.
Similarly, the white stallion denotes freedom. It's wild, when very few horses, anywhere in the world, are. And, yet this is modern(ish) southern France, the Carmague. Schoolboy geography told me it to be a place of special beauty, for its flamingos and, yes, the horses.
As with any western, baddie guys want to round up and imprison this symbol of beauty and freedom. The un-tamable. Only this lad can - and does. After injury in a fight with an incoming stallion, our horse reaches to the lad for help with its injuries.
The final scenes are open to interpretation but to my mind are exactly as the boy in Red Balloon. But the outcome is exactly the opposite. Both the horse and the boy knew of their fate but free, together, they can never be captured. Nor their souls.