Flight of the Red Balloon | Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2008
It’s always interesting to watch talented filmmakers move away from their native land to create in a new environment. Seasoned director Hou Hsiao-Hsien was born in China, grew up in Taiwan yet has also made films in Japan. Voyage du Ballon Rouge or Flight of the Red Balloon is his first film set and shot outside Asia and is inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic Le Ballon Rouge. Many words have been used to describe Hou’s approach to cinema, and how this approach has become synonymous with the Taiwanese cinema’s new wave. It is minimalist, reserved, naturalistic, sensual, observational, quite unlike anything to be found in Western cinemas. Therefore it was always going to be interesting to see whether this experienced director would be able to apply such a practiced approach in Paris, with a different language and entirely different culture to deal with. We’ve seen Hou tackle city life before, and here he seems to capture the Parisian landscape with ease. Thanks largely to the performance of his leading lady, Juliette Binoche who shines here. Binoche plays a Mother on the edge whose bleached blonde hair bobs away with increasing eccentricity and fretfulness. Her life as a single Mother of two is made even more difficult by a lack of support from everyone, including her ex-husband and his non-paying tenant/friend from downstairs.
Despite making a film in Paris, Hou Hsiao-Hsien still manages to transfer some of his own culture to the screen. This arrives in the form of a new nanny that Suzanne (Binoche) hires to look after her son, Simon. The nanny is a photography student from Taiwan called Song, a character who Simon takes to instantly. Through Simon’s imaginative wandering and Song’s keen eye for imagery, Hou is able to craft a whimsical account of these lives. Tied together primarily by the drifting of a bright red balloon that follows Simon around Paris, fleeting and graceful and always slightly out of reach. Of the varying critical accounts of Flight of the Red Balloon to be found, most never particularly attempt to pin down Hou’s use of the balloon itself. Why is this object used, and what does it represent? Hou appears to follow the original film in this way, using the balloon as an elusive presence to symbolise happiness. He also uses glass to help create some of his more stronger, thematic scenes, an approach that the director has perfected through earlier use in such films as Café Lumière. The glass exists to separate Hou’s chaotic and cramped internal scenes and his lush, expansive outdoor shots. Flight of the Red Balloon is not only an effective homage but also a wonderfully wistful journey in its own right.
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