Synopsis
The first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's first Western film. It is based on the classic French short The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse.
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Cast
- Juliette BinocheSuzanne
- Simon IteanuSimon
- Song FangSong
- Hippolyte GirardotMarc
- Louise MargolinLouise
- Anna SigalevitchAnna
- Flore Vannier-MoreauFlore
Recommendations
- 100
Village Voice
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
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. - 91
Entertainment Weekly
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. - 90
Salon
It's both happy and sad. That's exactly the way to describe Hou's marvelous film as well. - 90
New York Magazine (Vulture)
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. - 90
The New York Times
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. - 80
Variety
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. - 75
The A.V. Club
Flight was commissioned by producers overseas, and it feels similarly, impeccably slight.
