In Flight of the Red Balloon (Cert PG)
Published Date:
13 March 2008
In Flight of the Red Balloon (Cert PG), Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien takes the essence of Albert Lamorisse's 1956 children's classic of a small boy, a red balloon and the streets of Paris and melds it into a lyrical contemporary tale.
Juliet Binoche is the scatty single mother who takes on Song Fang, a film student from Beijing, as childminder for her inquisitive but lonely seven-year-old (Simon Iteanu). The girl brings a calming presence to the chaotic Parisian apartment and is willing to enter the boy's imaginative world
It is a contemplative piece, low on action but high on quiet observational detail. The red balloon hovers enigmatically from time to time without being intrusive.
Binoche (hair dyed blonde) is wonderful as a woman whose other preoccupations – preparing a puppet show, dealing with the two-year absence of her writer husband in Montreal and evicting troublesome tenants from her flat – make her a pretty hopeless mum, if it weren't for the obvious love she has for the boy. That's one of the charms of the film.
The full article contains 186 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
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Last Updated:
04 April 2008 1:53 PM
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Source:
n/a
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Location:
SHEFFIELD, SOUTH YORKSHIRE
