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In
1956, French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse made a 34 minute short film about a
young boy and the giant red balloon that follows him throughout Paris over the course of a day. Fifty-one years later, The
Red Balloon inspired Chinese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien to capture
his own cinematic interpretation of the City of Lights. Yet, even though
Hsiao-Hsien’s, Flight of The Red Balloon,
was inspired by Lamorisse’s original, very few similarities exist between the
two films.
In Hsiao-Hsien’s version, Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is a voice artist and
puppeteer struggling to raise her son Simon (Simon Iteanu) alone while her
husband is off in Canada writing a novel. Overwhelmed by work and motherhood,
she hires Song (Fang Song), a Taiwanese film student, to help her care for
Simon. Once everyone’s introduced, the 2nd act of the film spins off into a
series of fragmented scenes that never seem to fit together with any type of
cohesion.
Only after reading the press notes was I able to determine the real reason
for the forced insertion of all these random, disjointed scenes (i.e. the
merry-go-round and the soda shop) into the narrative. As it turns out, these
elements were only personal to Hsiao-Hsien. They represented his version of Paris instead of the characters’ version.
Another problem with the narrative is how long it takes to finally figure out
why all the adults in the film are constantly yelling at each other. Again,
according to the press kit, the actors know the full back stories of their
characters, yet most this information is never mentioned in the film. Not
that the audience needs to be constantly spoon-fed, but withholding too much
information only makes it harder for them to empathize with the characters or
their plight. Just because the actors know what’s going on doesn’t mean the
audience does.
The confusion finally starts sorting itself out at the end of the 3rd act
when Simon’s class is analyzing a painting in the museum scene, and the
analysis becomes a reflection of the film itself. By questioning the
ambiguous duality in perspectives and emotions in the painting we are finally
given a little insight into these isolated Parisians and understand why, from
a distance, one angle looks normal while another looks removed, or why the
illumination of a few bright spots of childhood innocence are darkened by the
surrounding reality of adulthood.
Yet, even more poignant than these ambiguous dualities is Song’s own discussion
of her “film within the film” wherein she explains why someone who wears the
color green is easy to digitally erase…right before you notice Simon’s dark
green sweatshirt. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Lamorisse’s original short, The Red Balloon (Le Ballon Rouge), focused on the poetic
romp of a boy through the streets of Paris with little to no dialogue. In Flight, however, Simon and his balloon
take a back seat to the constant, inharmonious arguing among the adult
characters in the film.
Overall, Flight of the Red Balloon
comes across as a fragmented Impressionistic character study that tries too
hard to be a narrative driven film. Even though the cinematography
effectively recaptures the breathtaking poetics of Lamorisse’s original,
Simon and his red balloon ultimately fade away, and we're left with a series
of disconnected events where the yen stops complimenting the yang. But then
again, maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re just supposed to look at it from
multiple perspectives.
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