Flight of the Red Balloon
Le Voyage du Balloon Rouge
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Margo Films (In Theaters)

The French Connection

By Nicholas Nocketback

A reconstruction of the 1956 film The Red Balloon, this cinematic gem is a ruby in a sea of granite. Chinese director Hsiao-Hsien follows 7 year old Simon through the streets of Paris, as does a single red balloon. Like Paris, Je t’ aime, this story stars Paris the city as much as it does Juliette Binoche. Binoche (Chocolat) brilliantly plays Suzanne, a single mother making ends meet as a voice for a marionette show in Paris. She employs Song, a Taiwanese film student, to care for her son Simon.
The balloon, like Suzanne, is a single, fragile entity, dazzlingly stunning while simple and a bit vulnerable. Her back story plays like any single parent, frantically trying to care for her child, and working offers little time to actually be a mother.
Simon shows his care taker, Song, around town, while she captures many of the places on camera. Throughout the story we see daily life play out in the city of lights. But unlike the romantic cliché Hollywood portrays, this city is one of banal beauty and quaint charm. I wonder throughout the film how Hsiao-Hsien manipulates the balloon to do his bidding, or if it is a genuine act of nature, playing to the lens like an invisible Binoche. Clearly there’s no CGI enhanced balloon (it’s an effing art film for god’s sake). But the solitary red balloon juxtaposed betwixt the backdrop of the stone and verdant city of Paris is a beauty not easily captured and certainly not found here in America.
There is the color red in every shot. You’re subconsciously searching for the balloon to show up and what your eyes single out is the crimson in everyday life. Suddenly, brake lights and doors have a new magnificence to them—a red door set next to another of any color shows more character and luster. The banality of this primary source in our lives is transcended and thus makes one yearn for a red balloon to follow us.
The balloon, like the camera, is a voyeur, tracing the steps of Simon and his latch-key life. You’ll find nary an explosion or even an exposed nipple in this picture, nor will you need them. Flight of the Red Balloon is a subtle piece of true art that makes me nostalgic for the city that I’ve only flirted with a few times, but feel as if it has taken hold of my beating red heart to never return to sender.