Juliette Binoche is blonde... and masterful yet again... in Flight of the Red Balloon, the latest film by Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

I just saw it (a wonderful diversion during a terrible bout with the flu), and this rates as the second film I've seen this year that I know I'll watch again and again. The light, the reflections, the performances, the extraordinary range of emotions evoked in a single long-take, the melancholy piano music, and a remarkable child actor who is so oblivious to the camera that I was reminded of Ponette. There are several scenes that I went back to watch a second time before leaving the couch...

It pays obvious tribute to the 1956 film The Red Balloon, but there were nods to other films all the way through.

It also seems to follow a track connected to Cafe Lumiere, with its focus on street cars and tracks.

There were even some very subtle visual jokes (either intentional or brilliantly accidental) referring to other films. For example, in the opening shot, a subway advertisement for Severance is visible, the title neatly "severed" by a lamp post... and the scene quickly wanders to follow a red balloon, the tether of which has been cut. Two jokes in one shot. Intentional?

After we pick up on the film's vibe -- following the fragile innocence and sense of wonder in a child, as he wanders through a complex adult world -- a bus goes by advertising Children of Men, with Clive Owen's face given prominence. That seemed too appropriate to be a mistake.

But that's all in just the first few minutes. Hou does things with reflections in this film that are astonishing. I think even Kieslowski would stand up and applaud. One shot, looking out a subway window, gives us two sunsets: One in the far distance, bright and filling the sky, the other in miniature... a second reflection of that same sunset, coming in through the window, bouncing back off the far window, and appearing reflected on the very same window we're looking through.

And Binoche is fantastic, of course. The first time we see her, it's quite a shocking appearance. I'll leave it at that. This movie allows her to play some notes we haven't seen from her before. Did I mention she's blonde?

I just learned that the end-credits song is a translation of a song made popular in China by the ex-wife of the late Edward Yang. That seems strangely appropriate, as young Simon Iteanu's performance had me thinking about Yang-Yang from Edward Yang's film Yi-Yi, in the way that he wanders with such innocence through a complex, intimidating adult world.

Already, I have two strong candidates for my favorite film of 2008 (the other being Syndromes and a Century.) This one is superior, by far, in its visual wizardry. Hou's mastery of light, reflection, and composition have me suspecting that he may surpass Kieslowski and Wong Kar Wai as my favorite image-maker for the screen.

Just wondering: Could I get away with taking a young child to this? Is it subtitled? Is the pacing too deliberate for most children?

The film was not intended for children. Sorry, but I can't remember... there may even be a few outbursts of profanity (in French). It's a film about adults losing their grip on childlike wonder, and one who seems to somehow maintain such a quiet and open-eyed perspective in the midst of turmoil. There are some sequences that small children would enjoy if they aren't already spoiled by fast-paced entertainment. This movie makes The Story of the Weeping Camel seem fast-paced. But we've seen testimonies here of Weeping Camel being a hit with small children, so... who knows?

Thanks, Jeffrey. The film opened at the local arthouse, but I won't be able to get to it this weekend. I hope it sticks around. I'll try to catch it next weekend.

I actually got a chance to watch this on a flight from Saskatoon to Toronto a couple weeks ago, as I jumped at the opportunity, not expecting Saskatoon's art house cinema to get it anytime soon.

It is slow. Not meaning this as a pejorative, but that is a fact. However, it did hold my attention on the flight and passed the time fairly quickly. And as far as the cinematography goes, the small aeroplane, in seat personal screen was not the best place to appreciate it. I might revisit it again in an environment more condusive to cinematographic appreciation.

I wonder if anyone has any insight into the puppeteering. I found that interesting, and perhaps a parallel to the life of the small boy?

Great news! Although I couldn't get to the local arthouse during this film's all too brief (2-week) run, an independent theater in D.C. has picked up the film for one week only, and I'm going to see it tomorrow night.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the theater (the Avalon) book the film, which I've heard has been an underperformer at the box office. I'm happy to support the theater for bringing the film back for one more week. The Washington Post's capsule review is ecstatic, further heightening my expectations. I see here, and elsewhere, that the film is described as "slow," but I'm ready for it.

This is a stunning film in many ways, but its long takes can be taxing. I found them refreshing, and the film worked well for me as a story of a child who longs for innocence, but is surrounded by societal decay -- primarily his fractured family. Binoche is just great in the movie, but I have to admit that I may be thinking even more highly of the film because I had read this before going to see the film:

The entire film is composed of elaborate ten-minute takes, which is the all the more impressive considering the bombshell the ever-elegant Binoche revealed in the audience Q&A that concluded the screening, informing a gasping audience that it was all the dialogue and action was improvised, and what’s more, that the first takes were the only takes.

That makes the film into an extraordinary formal experiment—and an extraordinarily successful one.

The film clearly took a toll on some in the audience I saw it with (a nearly full house for the Saturday late show, which surprised and delighted me). The man to my right began looking at his watch about 45 minutes into the film, raising his wrist and staring every 10 minutes thereafter. The woman directly to my left began to breathe very deeply around the 75-minute mark—not snoring exactly, but it was the unmistakable sound of sleep. I never looked over, but the man who kept checking his watch craned his head to look past me and stare at the woman. Did he want me to nudge her? I didn’t. She was there with a friend who would be better suited to such a task, and her breath reeked of wine. I figured the pre-show drink might have been unwise. (My own choice: a strong cup of coffee on the journey into town.) She revived after 5 minutes or so. Some teens in the front row began snickering and whispering comments late in the film, then erupted during the song that plays over the closing credits. I’m glad they held out as long as they did.

I’m sure others in the theater enjoyed the movie, but I haven’t felt a vibe that hostile since the preview screening of The New World. Actually, "hostile" isn't the right word for this film. "Puzzled" or "befuddled" or maybe "exhausted" would be more accurate.

Douglas Groothuis, the author of "Truth Decay", is confused by the film and mentions Jeffrey's review on his blog.

Utterly jaw-dropping. At least he gets around to admitting that he's not a film critic. And, in the comments, we discover that he's aware of the earlier film, and would "like to see it."

Hou's film is challenging. I don't expect many people to like it. But Groothius doesn't much try to engage it, does he?

I'm always mystified when a person quickly concludes, after one viewing of a film, that there is "no meaning" in a film. My bafflement is compounded by the fact that *this* reviewer gives evidence of having read reviews in which the reviewers excitedly discussed what it meant to them, what poetry they found in it, and how they admired the imagery and aesthetics. Did this person just not *read* the articles he mentioned? Or does he just flat-out reject what he read there because he didn't think of it first?

I'm not expecting many people to get a lot out of Flight of the Red Balloon as I did. But then, not many people go out of their way to buy and read books of poetry either. Most people go to the movies looking for something along the lines of commercial fiction, not poetry. Poetry works very differently than commercial fiction. It uses images and language differently, for different reasons. And the audience must, therefore, learn to watch differently, expect different things, ask different questions.

This film, as has been mentioned before, was an experiment, heavy on improvisation. The fact that it was so loosely constructed makes the poetry and beauty within it that much more surprising and delightful for me. Frankly, I wasn't surprised to find that the film was beautiful and meaningful, as I have been similarly impressed with previous films by Hou. He turns his camera toward seemingly ordinary scenarios, but he is so attentive to silences and expressions that he captures moments and emotions and ideas that we could not experience any other way.

If a reader of commercial fiction were to suddenly show up at a poetry reading by, say, Jane Hirschfield or Scott Cairns or Adam Zagajewski, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them walk away with a shrug and saying, "What's the point?" It takes a long time to learn how to read poetry, or how to interpret imagery. It's hard work for most Americans, who have grown up with the frantic attention-grabbing tactics of television, to learn how to enjoy something that exists not to "deliver a lesson" or "tell a story," or engage with frivolous sensationalism. Art like Hou's exists to kindle questions and delight with suggestions. It invites us to explore relationships, and it creates a space in which everyone can wander freely and have their own memorable encounters with mystery, beauty, and truth. Watching Hou's film is like buying a ticket to go walk in a garden on a sunny day. If your response to that experience is "What's the point? It's meaningless!", well... I can't help you.

Some sentences in this review, like this one for example, leave me confounded:


I don't even know what that means.

Must dialogue be the only conveyor of meaning and beauty in a film? Film is, above all, a visual art. If you take away the picture, you don't have a movie... you have radio. Of course cinematography is essential to the meaning of a film. What are the "aesthetic qualities" of a film without cinematography?

What would this fellow do in a museum, looking at paintings that broadcast no dialogue? Mercy, the meaning and aesthetic qualities would be left to the painter!

And then this:


On the contrary.

Perhaps critics were entranced because they've become accustomed to heavily processed, derivative, sensationalistic imagery, and this film gave them an experience of authentic beauty.

I have high expectations. I don't want pre-packaged, simplistic lessons. I don't need to be razzle-dazzled and entertained by sensationalistic, superficial elements. I want to learn to see the world around me and find meaning in the ordinary. Hou speaks to me in that way, powerfully, exhibiting a patience and powers of observation that are almost impossible to find among the American filmmakers whose work is now playing in theaters. I would argue that it is a particularly Christian endeavor to see the sacred in the ordinary, to find meaning in light and shadow rather than mere argument.

But we can see that there is a serious problem in the reviewer's capacity to interpret a film much earlier in the review when he says:


A single mother, working in a puppet theater, is overwhelmed by pressures and stresses and loneliness. She can hardly keep up with her daily errands and the demands on her time. Her husband (or boyfriend?) is gone, and so is her daughter, and her heart is breaking. And the tenants renting space downstairs are taking advantage of her. But she loves her son passionately. Her son is still caught up in the wonder of childhood, and he can still experience life the way his mother cannot... with wide eyes and big questions. A patient, peaceful, observant young filmmaker, Song, walks into their lives, and through her calming influence, brings a small measure of help to this predicament. And as she works on her own film, she adds layers of further inquiry into the tension between the burdens of adulthood pressures and the unbearable lightness of being.

Okay, I just scribbled that down from memory, several weeks after seeing the movie. That's more than enough "plot" for me.

Do the characters live happily ever after? Is the marriage restored to bliss? Does the mother resolve all problems with the aggravating downstairs tenants? No. This is not a formulaic entertainment or a fairy tale or wish-fulfillment storytelling. It's a "day in the life" that doesn't indulge our fantasies. Instead, it looks for flickers of incremental growth and hope in chaotic urban lives. It asks, must we surrender our childlike curiosity and delights in order to be adults? How do we maintain a sense of wonder as we grow up and take on sometimes-maddening responsibilities?



Perhaps a little more reflection, exploration, or discussion might help this viewer discover some possibilities regarding the piano tuner. That's one of my favorite elements of the film, a quiet suggestion that there is hope for this poor woman, so blinded by her own frenzied existence, might yet bring restore some balance and harmony to her life. The piano tuner is, arguably, the quietest and most attentive character in the film, and he is the one who restores an instrument to its proper state, who makes beauty possible. In the same way, the filmmaker and nanny, Song, is bringing some stability to this family, even as she walks with slow, meandering steps, meditative and full of compassion.

I feel bad that this viewer did not enjoy the film. But I really think it's inappropriate for him to extend his displeasure to discrediting and condemning those who took delight in it. I looked around at his blog, and he's fond of some of my favorite writers... in fact, some of those writers have had a lot to do with why I spend time seeking better art than what passes for entertainment in our culture. So I know he's capable of critical thinking. I just think he should seek out more discussion and experience when it comes to moviegoing, or at least refrain from categorizing and condemning those who find meaning where he does not.

That "secular" canard was a real low point for Groothius.

As for the piano, isn't it obvious that the instrument represents something in this film? If Groothius prefers literature, I'm surprised he doesn't see this. It's almost too heavy-handed in relation to the rest of the film, but I liked it. The boy takes piano lessons on a piano in the other couple's apartment. The mother begins to take control of that situation, and the way she's being taken advantage of by these friends of her husband's/boyfriend's, by wresting the piano away from them and bringing it back to her apartment. Her life is chaotic and unsettled -- out of tune. The tuner's efforts are a step toward restoration of stability, of more self-control, in her life.

This is a beautiful film. I liked how Song was a calming influence in the boy's life in the midst of the storm of Suzanne's life. And it was good that Suzanne's character was given enough depth so you could see the love she had for her son instead of just being a stereotypical stressed out parent.

As far as the red balloon goes, I wonder if it represents the filmmaker's view of God. An observer, silent, though floating within view at times, pointing the way toward transcendance, of a divine beauty of which this world is only a shadow.

Thanks for recommending this, Jeffrey. I just saw it with some friends (there were about 20 people in the theatre), and it is my favorite film of the year so far, after "The Visitor." I loved the reflections, the shadows, the dashes of color in unexpected places, the lingering shots, the wonder of a child. This paragraph of yours from earlier in the thread is probably what I'll quote when I tell others to go see the film.

Just returned home from seeing this. Absolutely exquisite! So many beautiful moments, so subtle, so tender. Hou is one of the greatest living filmmakers, and it is a marvel to watch the way he assembles his images to create such poetry. I loved the opening conversation of the boy to the balloon. It made me think of my first attempts as a boy of trying to communicate with God.

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/05/film/r...hou-hsiao-hsien