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Flight of the Red Balloon, The
IFC First Take


5.3

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

based on 41 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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:	DVD: October 21, 2008 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 5.3 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin R. gave it a1:
First let me say that I like art films...I like French films--Godard, Truffaut, Renoir....but this movie was excruciating. One of the worst "entertainment" experiences of my life! It was a movie about nothing. If you like watching a kid have a piano lesson, watching someone straighten up a living room, watching a piano tuner at work, or someone making pancakes then this is the movie for you. Oh and especially if you like to watch red balloons randomly floating around. I saw The Red Balloon when I was young and was enchanted. This, however, which is meant to be an homage, is beyond endurance. I give it a 1 for some occasionally nice cinematography.

Mark K. gave it a1:
A good artsy film is worth owning. This movie is not even worth napping through. Save the cramped neck by going to bed early and not watching this over-hyped, French-fried, potato.

Butter K. gave it a0:
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. I couldn't wait for it to end. I wanted to pull out my hair because I found it sooooooooo boring and pointless. What was the point of this movie?? I can't believe the critics loved this movie.

b da gave it a4:
I know this shows that I'm geeky, literal-minded and impatient, but after watching it I went back and noted that the first bit of balloon footage ended at the 7-minute mark and then didn't reappear until the 57-minute mark. Wasn't this supposed to be about a balloon following a kid around Paris?

R G gave it a10:
This is one of the most beautiful films of this year - the juxtaposition of the balloon on hovering over Paris with the the scenes of an extended family (suzanne, simon and song) floating through the cluttered Parisian apartment space is feast of casual beauty. Hou's approach lies in the simplicity of form - colors and framing and belief in his actors and image. there is plenty of real life drama here but nothing that is in your face (no close ups). hou's is def one the best directors out there in complete control of his images and sounds.

Dan B gave it a2:
In a word, Dull. Two hours of watching a frazzled mother, a quiet child and his equally quiet nanny go through their day to day. The most dramatic part of the film is when a tenant who is on screen for all of five minutes is to be evicted. A film for film students, and only them, with it's cracking of the fourth wall and subtle meta commentary. Supposedly the film is also about the dreams and thoughts of the three main characters, but they are never said aloud, or narrated, or even hinted at. If this film we're viewed by the deaf, they would miss nothing.

Andrew T gave it a4:
As a movie a 3, as a work of art hung on a wall, 9. I can see the point and the perspective, but is the memory at issue worth the canvas?

Flight of the Red Balloon, The IFC First Take

Flight of the Red Balloon, The
IFC First Take