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Flight of the Red Balloon | 
 enlarge | Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Actors: Juliette Binoche, Hippolyte Girardot, Simon Iteanu, Song Fang, Louise Margolin
Studio: Ifc
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $16.89
You Save: $8.06 (32%)
New (36) Used (10) Collectible (1) from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 5835
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 115
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: GEPD81475D
UPC: 796019814751
EAN: 0796019814751
ASIN: B001CDFY46
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 10/21/2008 Run time: 115 minutes
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Engaging, Subtle Film - Time Well Spent December 18, 2008
Oh did I ever enjoy this film. It was a wonderful slow time with several characters that I thoroughly enjoyed. I write slow on purpose, to set the viewer's expectations. This film moves along at a rythm that is very particular, very deliberate, and, to me and my family, perfect. There is a subtlty here that either draws you in deeply, or pushes you far away. I can't see a middle ground with The Flight Of The Red Balloon.
Two adults, a 12 and 17 year old agree that this is a wonderful engrossing film.
The most important point about Flight is the film production. I'm certain most reviewers have missed the fact that cut to cut time averages well over 3 minutes, maybe more like 5 to 10. The shots are very long, and a lot of character development and story progress happens in each long take. Compare that to the average film shots are rarely more than 10 seconds, and long is 20 seconds. Anyone that has seen this film once, should watch the film again and pay attention to when cuts are made in the film. It's incredible the choreography that had to take place for this to work.
I felt like this was two hours spent with some wonderful people, a boy, his mother, a nanny, a neighbor, and a host of minor characters. People float in and out of this movie just as they do in real life. The story isn't resolved, just like in real life. But the path these characters follow is interesting and pleasing.
The connection with the fabulous movie Red Balloon, it's a bit tenuous. There's homage in here, that's critical to understand. It's homage in the film sense, a director does things in a similar way or uses cues that make us think of the other film. The single most important homage to me, shot length and rythm of the original Red Balloon. The director used this aspect to perfection. It's NOT a continuation or retelling. Anyone searching for that will be sadly very dissappointed with this film. The Red Balloon (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)
The director did a lot with reflected images in glass. Early on it's very hard to tell if we are looking at the person directly, or a reflection. As the camera pulls back or a person moves, we discover it was a reflection all along. Another significant point is when we start to see a character seeing themselves reflected (a two shot with the reflection being the second image). The two shot doesn't appear until much later in the film - when we start to see more of the red balloon.
Juliette Binoche, Song, and the young boy are fabulous actors. They have an incredible charm that I enjoyed very much.
Whatever this film is rated is probably wrong - this is a PG film, sutiable for any audience. Because it's subtitled (and there is no English track), a child would need to read well to watch the film.
The DVD has no bonus features of any kind. It is simply the movie with original French soundtrack, and English / Spanish subtitles.
By the way, the quality of the subtitles / translation is really awful. There are a lot of nuiances in the French that the subtitle company missed badly.
There is another way to watch this film, there are some gorgeous images of Paris streets. The light is beautiful. The scenes outdoor scenes are wonderful. Anyone that loves Paris, will likely love this film.
If you appreciate character development, discovery, subtlty in a film, and real live rythm, you will enjoy this film. It is also worth watching several times. As another reviewer and I have pointed out, there is a lot going on in this film. And it's impossible to understand it all in one single viewing.
Body Snatchers, with a balloon. November 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Well, it's obvious no one gets this one. I don't want to spoil the fun so I'll just give people a couple pointers, things to perhaps notice.
* The movie poster during the balloon's first flight.
* The poster of "Mr. Punch" on the wall of Binoche's apartment.
* What does "red" stand for as a color, politically, especially when juxtaposed with lots of Chinese imagery?
* The ominous Chinese film student/nanny who is always lurking in the background as Juliette Binoche unravels, as if waiting to take over her entire life. ( A lot of people think that as a recorder and filmmaker she is a stand-in for Hou. But Hou of course is Taiwanese and if you've seen his earlier films or know a bit of Taiwan's history, you'll know how he feels about the Chinese. )
* The strange "Children of the Corn" precociousness and emotional distance of Binoche's child, and how this ties in with Cafe Lumiere.
* The motive for Binoche when she tries to get love from the kid.
* Listen carefully to the lyrics of the final song.
I read that Binoche and Hou both cried during its premiere at Cannes, as one reporter speculated, "for very different reasons." Indeed. The placid surface of this film hides a desperation that Hou seems to have pitched at a frequency only angels can hear. And other desperate humans, of course.
 Beautifully Shot But Slightly Pointless Homage to "The Red Balloon" September 13, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Nothing really big happens in Hsiao-hsien Hou's "Flight of the Red Balloon." Juliette Binoche is Suzanne, puppeteer and emotionally fragile mother of a seven-year-old boy Simon, both living in a small Paris apartment room. A red balloon floats in the Parisian sky as if watching over the little boy, a reference to Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic film "The Red Balloon" (though the new film could hardly be called a remake).
Respected Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien captures the slightly nostalgic atmosphere of the Paris streets very beautifully, but for all (or perhaps because of) Binoche's fine improvised acting the film feels overlong and needs editing. The camera lingers on Binoche and other characters including the lonely boy and Song, a Chinese nanny (she is also a film student studying "The Red Balloon"), but few things really interest us. I know some films, especially so-called art-house films, require patience on our side, and they end usually, if not always, with satisfactory results, but somehow I couldn't find them here except the beautiful street scenes and nice soundtrack music.
Perhaps this is because the film's reference to "The Red Balloon" is too contrived and the red balloon of this film, it seems, appears and disappears at random. Some of the cast are to be blamed too. Fang Song as nanny is not a professional actress, but, like the character she plays, a (former) film student in real life. However, she is an amateur as far as acting goes and it shows, so does the boy playing Simon, and the lack of emotion in the characters they play are obvious.
That makes us ask ourselves: Why is she there after all? Or why is Suzanne a puppeteer? What is the point of introducing the annoying (so she thinks) tenant below? And most of all, why the red balloon? Hsiao-hsien Hou's latest film is a collection of beautifully shot scenes, homage that is occasionally charming but too whimsical.
 Can you spell BORING? August 28, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
I wish I would have read more about this movie before I spent my time watching it. I found it to be amazingly boring. I gave it two stars simply because of the convincing acting (especially by Juliette Binoche). I always give the benefit of the doubt to foreign/non-conventional films, but this one just never "took-off" (pun intended). I found myself saying "okay, maybe the mother has a drinking problem", or "maybe Song falls in love with the mother" or "maybe something happens to the kid while chasing the red balloon", anything just to inject some life into the movie! I think unless you are in film school or like artistic films or are extremely patient and have nothing better to do, you may doze-off (like my wife did on several occassions). Be ready with the fast-forward button on your remote!:)
An Extemporaneous Homage to Albert Lamorisse's THE RED BALLOON August 24, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
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, August 08
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