Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Flight of the Red Balloon. Dir. Hou Hsiao Hsien. 2007.


LACMA Screening
April 5 (7:30 PM)

Commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay, Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien's first French-language film stars Juliette Binoche, in "perhaps the best and certainly the most eccentric performance of her career" (Dennis Lim), as a single mother so absorbed in her work as a puppeteer that she hires a young film student to help care for her seven-year old son. Though partly inspired by Albert Lamorisse's 1956 short Le ballon rouge, Hou's film is an entirely original and tender reimagining infused with the lyrical humanism and casual majesty of his weightless camerawork. "A quiet, unassuming and flawless tribute to Paris, to the spirit of childhood and to the ability of art to compensate for some of the painful imperfections of life."

- A.O. Scott, The New York Times
EXTRA CLIP!:
Also inspired by The Red Balloon, is this clip with Thomas the Tank Engine.

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