READERS who ran screaming from Wong Kar Wai's atrocious My Blueberry Nightscould be forgiven for approaching the latest film from Hou Hsiao-Hsien with some caution.
Fear not. Flight of the Red Balloon does, indeed, find another idiosyncratic Asian director shepherding a movie star through a western location. But Hou's characteristic traits (loose-limbed plotting, long, complex takes, a phobia of close-ups) are all in place, and the move from Taiwan to Paris has not lessoned their bewitching effect.
The film follows a few days in the life of a bohemian household. Juliette Binoche, her hair dyed blonde, plays Suzanne, a single mother who, despite being saddled with a hopeless absent husband, somehow manages to support her son (Simon Iteanu) by narrating puppet shows.
The story begins with Suzanne hiring a Chinese film graduate, Song (Song Fang), as a nanny for the boy. We learn of Suzanne's financial disputes with a layabout tenant and find out a little about Song's attitude towards cinema. A particular admirer of Albert Lamorisse's short The Red Balloon, the young woman embarks on a few tentative pastiches of that great picture starring her young charge.
Hou intends the film as a homage to Lamorisse's piece - in which a predatory balloon followed a child about Paris - but the connections with the shorter film are, in fact, largely superficial. Flight of the Red Balloon stands up as a worthy successor to earlier Hou gems such as Café Lumière and Three Times, in which his primly dispassionate camera followed quiet events with a cool discretion. Binoche and Song, both of whom coast comfortably through their roles, are always kept at a respectable distance and never suffer the indignity of hurried takes or eccentric angles.
As a consequence, Flight of the Red Balloon takes on a welcoming tone that should draw in all but the least patient of viewers. It's good to see one modern master avoiding any undue damage in transit.
