Pretty Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I found this movie astonishingly long and drawn out. While I thought some of the interplay was interesting and pleasant, it was for the most part aimless. The film just seemed to be a series of random conversations of every day French people and a mother that hardly spends time with her son. Nothing particularly interesting or exciting really happens. No profound insight or wisdom is ever really reviled. Nothing is really explained to the audience. The actual balloon only makes a rare appearance. I didn't find this film to be unpleasant, but it was lingering and somewhat pointless.

You know, maybe I'm just a complete idiot. I saw this film at TIFF in 2007 on a cluttered day of movie-watching and restaurant-hopping. I assumed I didn't like it because I was tired and unable to focus. So, in the best circumstances possible, I gave it another chance. Same reaction. The movie certainly looks lovely, and there are some really spectacular shots, I especially loved the one around half-way through the movie when the camera looks out of a train window and you think you're seeing the sky, but when the train passes by some trees you realize it was a reflection. So much of this movie just didn't work for me though, and as much as I try to see what others like in it, it just feels so mundane and inconsequential to me that it honestly felt like a total waste of time, an idea good for a short which didn't work as a feature. The film is certainly not empty, I wouldn't say that, but I just never could warm to it, partially I think due to the dull characters.

"Le Voyage du ballon rouge" (2007) was shown in the United States with the title"Flight of the Red Balloon." The film was co-written and directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou.Juliette Binoche stars as Suzanne, who is described as a puppeteer, but who actually directs theatrical works that feature puppets. (Suzanne also provides the voices of the puppets.) Suzanne's life is hectic. Besides the theater she has to contend with an absent (for two years) boyfriend, her daughter from a previous marriage, subletting tenants who don't pay their rent, and the care of her school-age son Simon. Suzanne hires a young Asian film student- -Fang Song--to watch the boy. Song brings an air of tranquility into Suzanne's and Simon's life, and into the movie.Meanwhile, in homage to the classic film, "The Red Balloon," a red balloon hovers near Song and Simon as they travel around Paris. In fact, Song decides to make a film-within-a-film, featuring Simon and, of course, a red balloon.Director Hsiao-hsien Hou is fascinated by mirrors and glass. Many of the scenes are filmed as reflections, or we see the balloon through glass that is also partially reflecting a room or a gallery. Nothing is clear-cut or simple--images and the people they portray are complicated and opaque.Juliette Binoche is one of the most beautiful actors on the screen today. However, in this film, her hair is dyed blonde, and it doesn't enhance her appearance. Her clothes appear to represent whatever she could find quickly in her cluttered apartment, and she's not elegant. No director could make Ms. Binoche unattractive, but in this movie the emphasis is upon her life, not her appearance. Ms. Binoche and Fang Song make a wonderful pair, and the people that enter their lives--piano tuners, furniture movers, piano teachers, puppet masters--are effortlessly drawn into their orbit.This is a wonderful movie if you don't mind a slow, unhurried pace, a lack of traditional plot, and no explosive climax or last-minute denouement. We join Ms. Binoche's troubled life, and Fang Song's quiet life, and we get to walk through Paris alongside them.

Note:anyone who fancies the cinematic overkill bombast of Jerry Bruckheimer,Michael Bay,Roland Emerich,etc.....PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM! That said,'Flight Of The Red Balloon' is a beautiful little film on the human condition. It comments on the Eurocentric lifestyle, as viewed through the Asian perspective. The story concerns a single mother,played to perfection by Juliette Binoche (always welcome on screen,as I've been an ardent fan of her work since 'The Unbearable Lightness Of Being')trying to raise her young son (Simon Iteanu),with an older daughter away at school, all without her absent husband. Also in the mix is an attractive young film student from Taiwan (played by Song Fang)who has been hired as Simon's Au pair,who fits in nicely among the others. Taiwan director Hou Hsiao Hsien (Flowers Of Shanghai, Three Times)has crafted a film that is mesmerizing to look at. Despite the rather hum drum goings on that transpire that in the hands of another director would be unwatchable, Hsien manages to make every day events seem dreamy. The film is a homage (of sorts)to Albert Lamorisse's now legendary film short,'The Red Balloon',in which the balloon acts as companion to a lonely French boy. The balloon,in this case acts as a narrative device,bringing the individual elements together (the humans)for nearly two hours that you can't tear your gaze from.