lastliberal 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.

gradyharp 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

Filmophile I had a sinking feeling when going to see this film because I'm old enough to remember the 1956 Red Balloon, which I hated like poison, despite the critical acclaim of the day.The redeeming features of this Hsiao-hsien Hou film are an inspired performance from Juliette Binoche, as a harassed, over-worked single mother, struggling with her career as an artist as well as trying to bring up her young son - beautifully and naturally portrayed with lots of obviously ad lib lines and actions skillfully preserved.The grimy and claustrophobic photography of Paris - without the glamour - was inspiring, too, and apt for the film's theme. At times, there were sequences so languidly beautiful that one could forget the rest of the film and just enjoy the pictures.But more merit than that was difficult to find. There was plenty of drama but no plot; no clear protagonist; an apparent total lack of direction; characterisation so diffuse that it was difficult to know - or want to know - much about anyone. After an hour, I still had no feeling for, or interest in any of the main characters, all of whom seemed to behave as childishly as the little boy. The Chinese girl, employed as a nanny said and did little, and it was difficult to understand why she was there at all, unless she found the French psyche as impenetrable as we did in the audience.I suppose Jean Luc-Godard was responsible for starting the trend for aimless, directionless, plot less, pointless, self-indulgent French cinema style with his 'classic' A Bout de Soufflé. I watched the audience for a lot of the time, since the film was so boring, and discovered that most were fidgeting and looking around the theatre as I was. And yet as we left, no one dared to say an adverse word. It's ART, I suppose, and therefore one must not mock! But it's worth remembering that even Shakespeare wrote some absolute turkeys. There, I've said it!

ematerso I was bitterly disappointed in this movie which had gotten a glowing review from one source I read but I should have paid more attention to the negative reviews on this board. The device of the freely floating and very large red balloon is at first charming, then aggravating and finally maddening! Most of the camera shots were very close in close and claustrophobic situations. Suzannes apartment, the streets of her neighborhood, the visits to her puppet theatre. Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is one of those frazzled people who is yet canny and shrewd and not so really out of control as you would think from the condition of her apartment and her activities. She is a loving but remote mother to her 6 or 7 yr old son, Simon. The nanny, Song is properly attentive to her charge but obviously more interested in her film career. There is Simon's absent older "sister" (Is it she we see in the scenes with Simon and a Suzanne with a different hairdo?) She lives in Brussels with her grandfather. We don't know why. Marc and his girlfriend are tenants of Suzannes but don't pay rent and use her kitchen. Simon takes piano lessons in a piano in Marc's apt. Suzanne has the piano moved upstairs and we hear a long description of injuries one can receive from moving such things. We go on a train ride. There were three things I found of interest in this movie. 1) you use green rather than blue for erasing on a computer. 2) the teacher with the children in the museum was interesting. Can't remember the third so I guess it wasn't so interesting after all. I gave it 2 stars because all of the actors were good, but it may have been hard to tell. This was so bad I was praying for it to end and I am an atheist.