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Overview
Le Voyage du ballon rouge is a French film comedy-drama first released in 2007,
directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou.
The film stars Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu, Fang Song, Hippolyte Girardot and Louise Margolin.
It has also been released under the title: Flight of the Red Balloon.
Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.
Synopsis
Fully occupied with her marionette show, single mother Susanne hires a
Taiwanese student, Song Fang, to look after her young children, Simon
and Louise. The seven year-old Simon develops a
particularly close bond with Song Fang, and as the two walk the streets
of Paris they imagine they are being followed by a mysterious red
balloon...
Film Review
Intended as a respectful homage to Albert Lamorisse’s classic 1956
short film Le Ballon rouge, Le Voyage du ballon rouge was
commissioned by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris as part of a series
of films to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its opening.
It was directed by the highly acclaimed Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao
Hsien, his first French language film and only the second film to be
made outside his home country (the first being Café Lumière, shot in
Japan in 2003). Hsien’s characteristic use of long takes and
penchant for beautifully balanced composition give the film a
distinctive visual quality, but unfortunately this does not compensate
for the lack of narrative content. Whilst the film is visually
alluring and succeeds in melding naturalism and poetry, it feels
frustratingly vacuous and looks like something ambling blindly in the
no-mans land between documentary and social drama, lacking both
narrative thrust and believable characters that an audience can engage
with. Juliette Binoche’s presence does more harm than good, as
her portrayal of a stressed parent is neither endearing nor
particularly convincing. It is true that Le Voyage du ballon rouge has
something of the indefinable whimsical charm of Lamorisse’s film but it
has none of that earlier film’s coherence and emotional pull. A
disappointing effort.
© James Travers 2010 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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