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Flight of the Red Balloon, The
IFC First Take


5.4

based on 23 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 18 votes
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Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Juliette Binoche, Hippolyte Girardot, Simon Iteanu, and Fang Song

A highlight at the 2007 Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals, Flight of the Red Balloon is the latest masterpiece from Hou Hsiao Hsien. Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's 1956 Academy Award-winning classic, Flight of the Red Balloon, Hou expands on that film's key elements--a young boy, a red balloon, and Paris--to weave an achingly beautiful tale about the mysteries of familial bonds and the lingering effects the past has on us all. Simon, a precocious young boy, must deal with the increasing fragility of his mother, the loving yet preoccupied Suzanne. Completely immersed in her own tribulations, Suzanne hires Song, a Taiwanese film student, to help care for Simon. Together with Song, a unique extended family is formed, utterly interdependent yet lost in separate thoughts and dreams mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon. (IFC First Take)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Hsiao-hsien Hou François Margolin
DIRECTED BY:	Hsiao-hsien Hou
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: April 4, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	113 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France
LANGUAGE(S):	French

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Flight of the Red Balloon is in a class by itself. In its unexpected rhythms and visual surprises, its structural innovations and experimental perfs, its creative misunderstandings and its outré syntheses, this is a movie of genius.

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

This is not a children's picture, although it touches on the imaginative powers and emotional resilience of children. It's another slice of Hou's distinctly poetic realism, and as such, also a kind of tribute to Paris -- the Paris of both today and of the older film.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

A gem made by a filmmaker who loves life, and knows how to capture its ebb and flow and sweet complication.

100

Washington Post John Anderson

Because it's one of the most beautiful films ever. Because it's a work of art on the order of a poem by Yeats or a painting by Rothko.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Hou's first film made outside of Asia is his most emotionally turbulent, yet he remains, like the balloon, outside looking in, a compassionate but distant observer capturing it all with a graceful restraint and floating beauty that ultimately carried me away with it.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Juliette Binoche is outstanding as a wildly untogether single mother who parks her son with a French-speaking Chinese nanny while she whirls and worries.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's both happy and sad. That's exactly the way to describe Hou's marvelous film as well.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

In the end what elevates Mr. Hou’s films to the sublime -- and this one comes close at times -- are not the stories but their telling.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What Mr. Hou has done is borrow power and some gentle intimations of a state of grace from one of the most enchanting images in movie history.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The camera is so unobtrusive and the acting so naturalistic that it takes a while for a narrative to emerge. When it finally does, you're surprised to find you're deeply invested in the characters.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

In The Flight of the Red Balloon, the great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien uses Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 masterpiece "The Red Balloon" as a springboard for his own masterpiece--a distinctively modern and allusive one, yet so tender and plaintive that you understand what Hou is up to on a preconscious level.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Hou intends to celebrate the classic 1956 children's film "The Red Balloon," and he has done a beautiful job. In fact, he may well have created a future classic of his own.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The subject is the privileged state of childhood itself - how we're all lucky to have had it and how it so easily floats away from our grasp.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A meditation on art, life, loneliness and the links between friends and strangers, the movie has a grace and humor that's wonderfully inviting.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

For all its fuss and fury, Flight of the Red Balloon succeeds magnificently.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Too much of this film is attenuated and vague, but it has moments of deep melancholy.

Variety Justin Chang

This eloquent study of loneliness and postmodern drift likely will be received with more admiration than rapture by the helmer's followers. But Juliette Binoche's turn as a harried single mom and pic's enlivening portrait of domestic rupture make this a highly accessible Hou.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Flight was commissioned by producers overseas, and it feels similarly, impeccably slight.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Fans of Hou know just what to expect from his slow, contemplative films - and they won't be disappointed.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

There's not much story here, but the characters are substantial: a single mother (nicely played by Juliette Binoche) who runs a local avant-garde puppet theater and is preoccupied with such matters as a downstairs tenant who refuses to pay rent or leave, her neglected but mainly cheerful son, and his Taiwanese nanny, a filmmaker in her spare time.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Ultimately, though, it's hard not to feel like Hou is saying more explicitly and expansively in nearly two hours what Lamorisse managed to convey in only one-fourth as much film.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The balloon will resurface throughout, but far more interesting, and substantial, is the slow reveal of Simon's domestic situation.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Not surprisingly, we're left with characters that feel only half sketched and fail to resonate on their own -- but onto which much can be read by Hou's most ardent fans -- in a poetic looking film that's ultimately as inflated and empty as the balloon itself.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Sam gave it a5:
I haven't seen the film, but some of the complaints on here are ridiculous. not every movie needs plot, character development and dialouge. there are other subtle, deeper purposes for the movie to exist, and they don't need to explained through plot, characters, and dialouge.

Chris E gave it a9:
Amazingly beautiful in its portrayal of the beauty hidden under the surface of life. Slow and meditative, but that's how life can be, and there's so much grace to its construction and performances that it draws you right in.

Marco P. gave it a0:
Incredibly boring! No story, no dialogues, no point. Even Paris looks like crap! Do not miss a 5 minutes "dialogues" with 3 sentences about the number of eggs required to make crepes. That will be the best part of the movie.

Alfio M. gave it a0:
That's a great movie for anyone who doesn't get bored watching a balloon screensaver for almost 2 hours.

[Anonymous] gave it a3:
Can't beliefe all the reviewers and I saw the same film. It dragged, no plot, irritating sequences with the puppeteers, incredibly difficult just trying to figure out what is going on. Definitely artsy fartsy. Beautiful photography, though.

Paul B. gave it a0:
Pointless, with endless scenes of pure nothingness. No plot, no character development, practically no dialogue...just the dreaded balloon floating as aimlessly as the film.

ummm gave it a5:
What struck me about this film, was the incredible performances of the actors in this film, yet in the long, contemplative scenes, stares, and balloon-watching, i was extremely disappointed th direction the ilm took. it was capable of so much more. 3 people walked out of the theater, and my friend (a movie critic, btw) and i, nearly fell asleep. what a shame!

Flight of the Red Balloon, The IFC First Take

Flight of the Red Balloon, The
IFC First Take