Reviews of Flight of the Red Balloon
Displaying all 3 reviews
Kelvin Ho
16Jan09
I understand why a lot of people dislike Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films but there is something about his style that gravitates me. I find his movies deeply moving even though he does not manipulate the audience with his detached style of filmmaking. This film in particular has such a poetic beauty that it never bored me. I’m not sure if this is his best film to date. I still love “Three Times,” the first Hou film I have seen. “A Time to Live, A Time to Die” is also a treasure because it is one of his most personal films. And “Flowers of Shanghai” is simply one of his most daring films. Hou Hsiao-hsien has become one of my favorite directors and his themes are as relevant as the films of the great Yasujiro Ozu. I think he deserves more accolades and credit for creating a new form of realist cinema. Hou and Jia Zhang Ke in my mind are the greatest Chinese filmmakers we have today.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
asuraf
28Nov08
Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien pays tribute to Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic short “The Red Balloon” with this loose adaptation, about a harried single mother (Juliette Binoche) whose lonely young son is followed by the titular flying object. Where Lamorisse’s film was a simple elegy about childhood innocence and finding friendship in unexpected places, Hou’s lengthening and modernizing of the story incorporates a metaphor of life in a big city as that of increasing frustrations and troubles, where the young boy represents purity, the boy’s new care-giver, a film student with a poetic eye, represents imagination, and the middle aged mother represents the daily difficulties of basic existence, sometimes devoid of both purity and imagination, but essential all the same to the human fabric. You have to find these metaphors for yourself in Hou’s work, what he gives you is a slow, often motionless, series of vignettes where people either just talk, stare, or react to other people talking and staring; it’s a carefully controlled mise-en-scene that is both beautiful and maddening, not unlike the films of protege Tsai Ming-liang, or fellow tri-named Asian masters Anh Hung Trang, Kim Ki-duk, and, though a bit more expressive, Wong Kar Wai.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
Johnny Sainsbury
13Oct08
I hate to sound pessimistic, harsh, or cynical… but something about this movie got to me in a very bad way.
It must’ve been the talent on display, the superb acting, and the beautiful framed shots that (this might come as a surprise) spoiled the film for me. These things proved that those working on the film had talent, and a heck of a lot of potential, yet were almost refusing to live up to it – trying to be dull.
A great example of this is the cinematography. The shots were well framed, but that was it. It was clear that the cinematographer was incredibly talented, yet was refusing to do anything but put pretty things in the right places, when it was obvious that he or she had the ability to move and control the camera to conduct strong emotions or thoughts.
Almost everything and everyone else in this film followed the aforementioned process – flaunting their talents, but doing everything possible to restrain them.
The Flight of the Red Balloon was clearly trying to be a subtle meditation on ordinary French middle class life, but the obviousness of all the ‘subtle’ ideas and actions in the film, and the way that everything was forcibly toned down pushed the film into tiresome and most of all frustrating territory.
People with talent should be embracing it, not avoiding it. This faux contemporary French cinema is made purely for young pretentious hipsters with cash, and needs to be exposed for what it is: completely un-genuine cinema.
I’m sorry, but avoid. For a more engaging and finely crafted meditation on Parisian life, see Haneke’s Hidden, and of course, the original short The Red Balloon.
- Currently 2.0/5 Stars.