Flight of the Red Balloon

Somewhat of an homage to the children's classic, The Red Balloon, but those expecting anything like that film will be disappointed in this one. Yes, there is a cute French boy. And yes, there is a red balloon. But other than that, this film is only ostensibly connected to the 1956 film. It reminded me a bit of the 2002 film What Time is It There, another Taiwanese film with a main character way into a 1950's French film. In that movie, the object of the obsession was the Truffaut film The 400 Blows.

Both SHR and I enjoyed this more than we thought we would. We both liked it a lot more than the previous Hou Hsiao-Hsien film we had seen, Three Times. Not much happens but it all looks great. The film is about a boy, Simon, and his hyper mom played by Juliette Binoche, who is more caught up in her day-to-day neuroses to pay that much attention to her son. So that duty falls to his new babysitter, Song, a Chinese film student who is enamored with The Red Balloon, and filming Simon like he's in the film. And oh yeah, there's a red balloon that follows them around.

The film was interesting enough without the added drama of the balloon following them around. At times, the balloon aspect seemed almost a bit like overkill. But overall, I did like this movie a lot. I keep meaning to see some of his other films that are supposed to be great - especially Millennium Mambo.

Directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien
2007, U.S. Release: 2008
DVD