Le voyage du ballon rouge

Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat, Caché) is a pleasure to watch. In this film she plays a harried mother with her flying blond hair symbolizing the mess of her life as she tries to raise a young son, with a husband off in Montreal writing and a daughter in Brussels. Life is not easy as she tries balancing 10 things at once. But, isn't that what we all go through? She hires a Chinese film student (Fang Song in her film debut) to watch her child, Simon, (Simon Iteanu, also in his first film).

Acclaimed writer/director Hsiao-hsien Hou doesn't bother with plot in this film, and I am given to understand that much of the dialog was extemporaneous. It is a credit to Binoche and the others that is gives us a picture of French life.

The film is purported to be an homage to Albert Lamorisse's 1956 short, The Red Balloon. In this film, the balloon floats in and out of the story without apparent contribution to what is going on. It is not the balloon that becomes a friend and companion to the boy, but the nanny.

It is particularly French - a slow film requiring much patience to appreciate.

Watched at the Toronto International Film Festival, with a personal appearance by Juliette Binoche, a favourite guest of the TIFF.

Those who have watched "The red balloon" (1956) will never forget it. "Flight of the Red Balloon", Hou's Hsiao-hsien's second foreign language (i.e. non-Chinese) film, is not a remake of this all-time classic. Rather, Hou's film pays tribute to it, as well as borrows from it the obvious motif.

Those who have watched his first foreign language film Japanese "Cafe Lumiere" (2003) would recognize Hou's unassuming style: slow, languid pace visually; complete silence to dreamy piano in the audio department. This film actually already has more "action" (for want of a better word) than most of Hou's other films. Wandering nonchalantly around various slices of daily life of a simple family in Paris, the film starts with Song (Fang Song), a film student from Beijing, taking up a post as nanny of little kid Simon (Simon Iteanu) whose divorced mother Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is a busy actress.

Revolving around the three principle characters, the film depicts various things – alternatively amusing, frustrating, touching, mundane, inspiring – at that particular time in their lives: Song and Simon getting to know each other, Suzanne's interesting current assignment of supplying all spoken dialogue in a puppetry theatre (how wonderfully Binoche does that!), hassles with an irresponsible basement tenant, Song's self-initiated project of filming a "red balloon" sequence with Simon as the subject, Simon's longing for his loving elder sister currently sojourning in Brussels, and more.

It is through sharing with them their simple daily lives rather than earth-shattering emotional turmoil that we come to know and care for these characters. In Hou's usual unassuming style, meticulous attention is given to simple details, things so simple that a crafty Hollywood screen-writer wouldn't dream of writing. Example. Suzanne brings home an armful of grocery as presents and, in high spirit, dumps them on the kitchen table, hitting the overhead lamp with the upswing of her arm. Completely as-a-matter-of-course, little Simon says, "Mind the lamp". Example. Two workmen, after a tough negotiation with the staircase, succeed in moving a piano upstairs, during which time Song and Simon wait patiently downstairs. As the workmen, after a friendly chat with Suzanne and receiving their fee, walk out of the door, Song walks in, carrying the piano stool. Suzanne exclaims, "Oh, I've forgotten all about the piano stool!"

Going back to the title, the red balloon, as mentioned, is used as a recurring motif, not too frequently, but just at the right moments to punctuate the mood of the film. This is vintage Hou and brilliant Pinoche, except to those few who walked out of the TIFF screening, obviously out of boredom (and at Cannes early this year too, from a review I've read). But then there are always a few of those.

Much of the strength of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's films lies in the astute powers of his observation and a sensibility that can turn details of everyday life into cinematic poetry. In "Café Lumiere", his lyrical tribute to Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu, the focus was on the streets of Tokyo, Japan. In his latest film, the lovely and nostalgic Flight of the Red Balloon, Hou and cinematographer Lee Ping-bing bring their observational camera to the streets of Paris, focusing on a Parisian family as they walk the streets, sit in the park, shop at stores, and visit a puppet theater, where Suzanne, the family's matriarch (Juliette Binoche) works as a puppeteer, writing the material and providing the vocal dramatics for the shows.

Unlike the missteps of Hou's last film "Three Times" where innocuous pop ballads filled the air, the only sounds we hear are the ambient sounds of the environment: people talking, traffic, and street noises. Filmed as the first in a series commemorating the 20th anniversary of Paris' Musee d'Orsay, Flight reprieves the magic of the original "Red Balloon", a thirty-minute short by Albert Lamorisse from 1956 that has attained the status of a children's classic. The balloon is not as intrusive in the update but still maintains a mysterious if more distant presence. In the opening scenes a young boy named Simon (Simon Iteanu) attempts to coax the red balloon from its perch high above a Parisian subway station.

The balloon decides to hover for a while and then begins to follow Simon as he makes his way home from school on buses and trains. Going on hiatus, the balloon reappears now and then but takes center stage once again at the film's conclusion. The plot is woven around Simon's mother and the frustrations she faces in being a single mom: working with her puppet show, dealing with recalcitrant tenants as a landlord, interacting with her gracious Taiwanese nanny Song (Song Fang), arranging for child care and piano lessons, talking on the phone to her boy friend in Montreal, barely having enough time to provide affection for young Simon who is quiet and lonely, estranged from his sister who lives in Brussels and only visits periodically.

It is a story no different than thousands of other split households, but the ability of the impeccable cast and the lyricism of Hou bring the film alive. In spite of her emotional ups and downs, Suzanne never loses control and Hou always maintains a wistful, almost lighthearted approach as people come and go in the crowded apartment: a piano tuner tries to do his job over the clamor of voices, the couple from downstairs cook vegetables in the kitchen, and Suzanne's lawyer discusses her options in dealing with the tenant behind in his rent.

The main character of the film, however, though not always on camera, is the balloon, a shimmering object in the sky that provides the emotional center of the film. While there are no overt magical sequences as in the original, the appearance of the balloon has a calming effect, suggesting that when we lose perspective and become too bogged down in the "stuff" of life, there is a presence that follows and guides us into the night.

Somewhere the highly regarded Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien had the idea of paying homage to the 1956 classic Albert Lamorisse film THE RED BALLOON, a tender story of a child's interaction with a nearly animate floating balloon, and while there is indeed an short introduction of a small boy addressing an errant red balloon floating in Paris, the 'homage' stops there. What follows is an overly long, frustratingly impromptu series of scenes that lack cohesion and resolution.

THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Le Voyage du balloon rouge) is a prolonged (113 minutes) series of scenes that stutter along with the same sort of wandering course of the occasionally visible red balloon to present moments in the life of a disheveled, frumpy, single mother Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) whose income depends on her fascination and obsession with Chinese marionette presentations for which she supplies the backstage voice for all of the characters. Her absent 'husband/boyfriend' has left her to write in Montreal while Suzanne must care for her young son Simon (Simon Iteanu) with the help of a newly hired Taiwanese photographer nanny Song (Fang Song) while her daughter resides in Brussels. This disheveled household is further complicated by the freeloading Marc (Hippolyte Girardot), the friend of her absentee 'husband', by Simon's piano lessons taught by Anna (Anna Sigalevitch), and by impossible conflicting schedules for marionette performances, partially relieved by Song's quiet ability to take Simon on adventures outside the confines of the cluttered little space they all call home. The only quieting element of this film is the occasional appearance of the 'guardian angel' red balloon, which seems to be a symbol for defining the real world of Simon and the illusory world he craves. The dialogue as written by Hou and François Margolin is choppy and the camera work and constant meandering piano music seem extemporaneous: there are few resolutions to the individual stories that are only hinted. Juliette Binoche is a solid actress able to make the most of a minimal script and horrendous costuming and makeup: her moments of being the voice of marionettes are magical. But this Red Balloon just doesn't take flight in the context of this homage. As with the rest of the film the balloon just floats off at the end. The viewer needs a lot of patience with this film! Grady Harp

Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien just made a film in Japan, 'Café Lumiere.' This, his first foray out of Asia to make a film, was commissioned by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. It's a precise study of the quotidian, and since that quotidian is in Paris, it's particularly graceful and lovely, despite the themes of urban loneliness and stress, which seem to grow seamlessly out of the last film into this one. It's about a frazzled lady named Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) with over-bleached, unruly hair. Her life is a little like her coiffure—she can't quite seem to control it. She has a seven-year-old boy named Simon (Simon Iteanu), with a fine profile and a big mop of hair, and an annoying downstairs lodger (Hipolyte Girardot), a friend of her absent boyfriend, who, it emerges, hasn't paid his rent in a year. Suzanne's work is unusual. She puts on Chinese puppet plays, for which she does all the voices. As the film begins, she picks up Song (Song Fang), a Taiwanese girl studying film-making, fluent in French, who is going to be a "child minder" for Simon. And then she picks up Simon at school, introduces them, and takes them to the apartment.

The Musee d'Orsay lent Hou a copy of Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic 34-minute short 'The Red Balloon.' This is a kind of homage to and riff on it. There's a big red balloon that keeps following Simon. Song also starts shooting a little film of Simon with a red balloon.

Hou admits he didn't know a lot about Paris. Somehow he got hold of a copy of Adam Gopnik's book about the city, 'Paris to the Moon,' an enlightening and truly smart study of the French and their capital that grew out of the years when Gopnik was The New Yorker's correspondent there—when he also had young a little boy along. From Gopnik Hou learned about how old Parisian cafes still have pinball machines ('flippers', the French call them). He also learned that the merry-go-round in the Jardin du Luxembourg has little rings the children catch on sticks as they ride around (like knights in the days of jousting). Hou put both those things in his movie. He says that once he had Simon's school and Suzanne's apartment, the film was safely under way. He provided a very detailed scenario (penned by Hou with co-writer and producer François Margolin) complete with full back stories, but the actors had to decide what to say in each of their scenes. They did, quite convincingly.

Hou's life has been full of puppets from childhood, and he made a film about a puppet master. This time he incorporates a classic Chinese puppet story about a very determined hero: he meant it to describe Suzanne, who creates a new version of it. He also brings in a visiting Chinese puppet master. Suzanne calls in Song to act as interpreter for the puppet master during his visit, and also asks her to transfer some old family films to disk. The lines between filmmaker and story, actors and their characters, blur at times.

Flight may be seen as a contrast of moods. That tenant downstairs has become a real annoyance. Simon's father has been away as a writer in residence at a Montreal university for longer than he planned. These two things are enough to make Suzanne fly off the handle whenever she comes home. But Song and Simon are calm souls, and they hit it off from the start. With Simon, all is going well. He's happy with his young life. Math, spelling, flipper, wandering Paris with Song, catching the rings at the Jardin du Luxembourg, taking his piano lessons: the world according to Simon is full and good. Suzanne hugs Simon as if to draw comfort from his love and his serenity.

Hou has a wonderfully light touch. Changes of scene feel exactly right. The red balloon and the occasional judiciously placed pale yellow filter by Hou's DP Mark Lee Ping Bing make the Parisian interiors seem almost Chinese, and beautiful in their cozy clutter. Let's not forget that red is the luckiest color in Chinee culture.

You could say that nothing really happens in Hou's red balloon story. Like other auteur-artist filmmakers, he requires patience of his audience. But nothing in particular has to happen, because he stages his scenes with such grace and specificity that it's a pleasure to watch them unfold; a lesson in life lived for its zen here-and-now-ness. Occasionally perhaps here the absence of emotional conflicts or suspense leads to momentary longeurs, but one's still left feeling satisfied. Clever Hou, who is clearly a master of seizing the moment, can make you feel as much at home in Paris as any French director. Though Flight of the Red Balloon may generate little excitement, it provides continual aesthetic pleasure, and at the same time has the feel of daily life in every scene. This is a method that can incorporate anything, so at the end the Musee d'Orsay is easily worked in, through Simon's class coming for a visit and looking at a painting by Félix Vallotton—of a landscape with a red balloon. It's in the nature of good film acting that Binoche's character, though sketched in only with a few brief scenes, seems quite three-dimensional. This is Hou at his most accessible, but there is more solidity to this film than might at first appear.

An official selection of the New York Film Festival 2007. ©Chris Knipp 2007