Very loosely based on Albert Lamorisse's 1956 beloved flight of fancy, Le Ballon Rouge, Hou Hsiao-hsien's first film made outside of Asia is a typical wonder from the Taiwanese master. A mysterious red balloon affectionately follows seven-year-old Simon around Paris. His mother, Suzanne (Juliette Binoche, never better), is a puppeteer who uses her vocal talents to bring life to the shows she writes. Completely absorbed in her new show, Suzanne becomes overwhelmed by the complications of modern daily life, and decides to hire Song Fang, a Taiwanese film student in Paris making her own remake for the Lamorisse film, to help her care for Simon. Commissioned by Paris' Musée d'Orsay as the first of a series of films to celebrate its 20th anniversary, Hou's work shows that a foreigner's perspective always yields interesting insights into another culture, and that apartments are just as cramped in Paris as in Taipei.

"Flight of the Red Balloon is densely edited, conceptually complicated and enchantingly eccentric. The eponymous balloon is at once a character, a (literally) free-floating metaphor, and the subject of a student movie... [The film is] centered on a spectacular, courageously off-putting performance--namely, Juliette Binoche's turn as a distracted, frowsy single mom whose current job appears to be narrating a Yuan Dynasty puppet play. In subject matter as well as self-reflexivity, the movie is surprisingly close to Hou's masterpiece The Puppetmaster--albeit looser, more lyrical, and much devoted to the problem of orchestrating 'nothing' in impossibly tight spaces."--J. Hoberman, Village Voice

The VIFF gratefully acknowledges the support of the Consulate General for France in Vancouver for their help in presenting the Spotlight on France series and for their invaluable assistance in facilitating the participation of French filmmakers at the Festival.

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