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Beautifully Shot But Slightly Pointless Homage to "The Red Balloon"
Nothing really big happens in Hsiao-hsien Hou's "Flight of the Red Balloon." Juliette Binoche is Suzanne, puppeteer and emotionally fragile mother of a seven-year-old boy Simon, both living in a small Paris apartment room. A red balloon floats in the Parisian sky as if watching over the little boy, a reference to Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic film "The Red Balloon" (though the new film could hardly be called a remake).
Respected Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien captures the slightly nostalgic atmosphere of the Paris streets very beautifully, but for all (or perhaps because of) Binoche's fine improvised acting the film feels overlong and needs editing. The camera lingers on Binoche and other characters including the lonely boy and Song, a Chinese nanny (she is also a film student studying "The Red Balloon"), but few things really interest us. I know some films, especially so-called art-house films, require patience on our side, and they end usually, if not always, with satisfactory results, but somehow I couldn't find them here except the beautiful street scenes and nice soundtrack music.
Perhaps this is because the film's reference to "The Red Balloon" is too contrived and the red balloon of this film, it seems, appears and disappears at random. Some of the cast are to be blamed too. Fang Song as nanny is not a professional actress, but, like the character she plays, a (former) film student in real life. However, she is an amateur as far as acting goes and it shows, so does the boy playing Simon, and the lack of emotion in the characters they play are obvious.
That makes us ask ourselves: Why is she there after all? Or why is Suzanne a puppeteer? What is the point of introducing the annoying (so she thinks) tenant below? And most of all, why the red balloon? Hsiao-hsien Hou's latest film is a collection of beautifully shot scenes, homage that is occasionally charming but too whimsical.
Can you spell BORING?
I wish I would have read more about this movie before I spent my time watching it. I found it to be amazingly boring. I gave it two stars simply because of the convincing acting (especially by Juliette Binoche). I always give the benefit of the doubt to foreign/non-conventional films, but this one just never "took-off" (pun intended). I found myself saying "okay, maybe the mother has a drinking problem", or "maybe Song falls in love with the mother" or "maybe something happens to the kid while chasing the red balloon", anything just to inject some life into the movie! I think unless you are in film school or like artistic films or are extremely patient and have nothing better to do, you may doze-off (like my wife did on several occassions). Be ready with the fast-forward button on your remote!:)
An Extemporaneous Homage to Albert Lamorisse's THE RED BALLOON
Somewhere the highly regarded Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien had the idea of paying homage to the 1956 classic Albert Lamorisse film THE RED BALLOON, a tender story of a child's interaction with a nearly animate floating balloon, and while there is indeed an short introduction of a small boy addressing an errant red balloon floating in Paris, the 'homage' stops there. What follows is an overly long, frustratingly impromptu series of scenes that lack cohesion and resolution.
THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Le Voyage du balloon rouge) is a prolonged (113 minutes) series of scenes that stutter along with the same sort of wandering course of the occasionally visible red balloon to present moments in the life of a disheveled, frumpy, single mother Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) whose income depends on her fascination and obsession with Chinese marionette presentations for which she supplies the backstage voice for all of the characters. Her absent 'husband/boyfriend' has left her to write in Montreal while Suzanne must care for her young son Simon (Simon Iteanu) with the help of a newly hired Taiwanese photographer nanny Song (Fang Song) while her daughter resides in Brussels. This disheveled household is further complicated by the freeloading Marc (Hippolyte Girardot), the friend of her absentee 'husband', by Simon's piano lessons taught by Anna (Anna Sigalevitch), and by impossible conflicting schedules for marionette performances, partially relieved by Song's quiet ability to take Simon on adventures outside the confines of the cluttered little space they all call home. The only quieting element of this film is the occasional appearance of the 'guardian angel' red balloon, which seems to be a symbol for defining the real world of Simon and the illusory world he craves. The dialogue as written by Hou and François Margolin is choppy and the camera work and constant meandering piano music seem extemporaneous: there are few resolutions to the individual stories that are only hinted. Juliette Binoche is a solid actress able to make the most of a minimal script and horrendous costuming and makeup: her moments of being the voice of marionettes are magical. But this Red Balloon just doesn't take flight in the context of this homage. As with the rest of the film the balloon just floats off at the end. The viewer needs a lot of patience with this film! Grady Harp, August 08
About Flight of the Red Balloon detail
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2123 in DVD
- Released on: 2008-10-21
- Rating: Unrated
- Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
- Formats: Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
- Original language: French
- Subtitled in: English
- Number of discs: 1
- Running time: 115 minutes
Flight of the Red Balloon Description
Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 Academy Award®-Winning short*, Flight of the Red Balloon is the latest masterwork from director Hou Hsiao Hsien (Three Times, Millennium Mambo). Expanding on the key elements of Lamorisse's short - a young boy, a red balloon and Paris - Hou weaves the tale of a boy, Simon (Simon Iteanu) dealing with the increased fragility of his loving yet preoccupied mother, Suzanne (Academy Award® - Winner Juliette Binoche** of The English Patient, Caché). When a Taiwanese film student, Song (Fang Song), is hired to help care for Simon, a unique extended family is formed - utterly dependent on each other yet lost in separate dreams mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon.
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