Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien is an artist of light and color and the inflection of what could be the most banal of moments. In his lyrical French-language riff on the recently re-released 1956 short “Red Balloon” by Albert Lamorisse, Hou allows the balloon to move through the streets and across the skies of Paris, settling once in a while as an observer to the lives of a family comprised of frenetic mom Juliette Binoche, a ceaselessly stressed errand-runner and puppet-maker, her young son (Simon Iteanu) and the Chinese nanny (Fang Song) who’s also a filmmaker making a movie about… a red balloon on the streets of Paris. Neither tedious nor precious, but instead an ineffable drift across several days in their lives, “The Flight of the Red Balloon,” shot with bold primary colors, largely yellow and red, attains some of the mystery of similar work by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski: the concrete suggests other magical, mystical currents that we are aware of only in fleeting glimpses and impulses. There is an extended take in which the balloon, seen by the boy through a window in the apartment, moves away and into the narrow street where another red balloon is part of a mural painted on the side of a building. It’s ridiculously simple, yet magical. Seemingly languid, the film, like most of Hou’s great work, is casually studied and emotional gratifyingly. It’s simple: brilliant, understated composition and pace in the rich light of summer’s golden hour. He also watches Binoche the way he watches his actresses like Qi Shu (“Millennium Mambo,” “Three Times”), catching her in flurries of motion, bending to kiss her child but baring a glimpse of thong, the flex of her bare calves above white Chuck Taylors. Her character is a glorious wreck, and Hou loves her well. The everyday is endlessly precious. 100m. (Ray Pride)
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