Beyond a means to keep a
French 101 class occupied for 34 minutes, most remember Albert Lamorisse's 1956
short "The Red Balloon" as the magical, nearly dialogue-free tale of a sentient
balloon that follows a little boy around the streets of Paris. But it's also
extremely bittersweet, since the boy lacks allies among non-helium-filled
life-forms, and even his newfound friend is eventually destroyed by a group of
bullies. His essential loneliness makes the feature-length homage The Flight
Of The Red Balloon
a good fit for Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, a poet of alienation whose
recent work has set characters adrift in major cities like Taipei (Millennium
Mambo)
and Tokyo (Café Lumière). Like the latter film—made to honor the 50th
anniversary of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story—Flight was commissioned by
producers overseas, and it feels similarly, impeccably slight, as if Hou were
resigned to playing a tourist in his own movie.
