NYFF. Flight of the Red Balloon.

"[N]ever has a film felt so spontaneous, slapdash, and utterly controlled all at once," writes Michael Koresky at Reverse Shot. "It's become a cliché to say that a film floats, that it exists in reverie, yet The Flight of the Red Balloon may come closer to embodying an earthbound heavenly state than any film I've seen. Its casual bliss is buoyed by a regard for beauty so accessible that, in its self-reflexive final scene, even a group of schoolchildren can notice it."

Acquarello, too, admires this "slender and diaphanous, but accessible and finely rendered homage to Albert Lamorisse's beloved postwar short film, The Red Balloon."

Updated through 10/16.

Hou Hsiao-hsien limits "the once-central object to intermittent appearances that keep its narrative and metaphorical significance ambiguous to the brink of frustration," writes Kevin B Lee at the House Next Door. "But the marginalization of the balloon conveys the film's essential structure, in which people are in a perpetual state of movement, convening and dispersing with no overt motivation other than to live as best as they can manage. Likewise, the film itself is a red balloon, held at arm's length, but in plain sight, inviting engagement."

"In honor of the film's elliptical episodes," Daniel Kasman offers "a descriptive analysis or review of Flight of the Red Balloon in similar fragments."

"[T]he notion of cinema as a conduit for remembering—for communing with the past—is ever-present," writes Nick Schager at Slant. "At once commanding and vulnerable, Binoche is a revelation, dominating space in ways ultimately almost as masterful as her director."

"In films like A Time to Live and a Time to Die and A Summer at Grandpa's, the collective sense of responsibility for the children in the film is expressed as a sort of poetic reality of life in the provinces (one Hou himself is said to have experienced personally)," notes Tom Hall. "For me, The Flight of the Red Balloon fits perfectly among Hou's earlier 'coming-of-age' films as being focused on the wonders of childhood while simultaneously exploring the sacrifices and concerns of maternity."

"There's much to be observed, but like in real life, stories are truncated or unfinished, and take detours," writes Marcy Dermansky. "Flight of the Red Balloon is an unusual accomplishment, slow, unassuming, and strangely mesmerizing."

Meanwhile, back in Toronto:

• DVD Verdict's Jesse Ataide notes that "the entire film is composed of elaborate ten-minute takes, which is the all the more impressive considering the bombshell the ever-elegant [Juliette] Binoche revealed in the audience Q&A that concluded the screening, informing a gasping audience that all the dialogue and action was improvised, and what's more, that the first takes were the only takes. After that revelation, the film more than ever seems like a happy cinematic miracle to treasure all the more."

• "I have to agree with critics who complain that the movie is slight and sometimes aimless," writes J Robert Parks. "But Hou's many fans (I know that Girish and Darren were ecstatic after the screening) will be pleased, and some may even be overwhelmed. I was merely happy to bathe in his images."

• "A friend asked after the screening if I thought the red balloon was integral to the film - if it was necessary at all - and I realized in answering that, for me, the balloon had acted as a kind of emotional locus: a splash of color and beauty, less symbol than catalyst or accelerant," writes Darren Hughes.

• "It's a film that I find growing in my memory, simply because its leisurely pleasures need time to sink in," writes Steve at the Film Experience.

Earlier: Michael Guillén; and reviews from Cannes.

Update, 10/16: "Flight of the Red Balloon is buoyant artistry and wondrous cinema," Michael Joshua Rowin at Stop Smiling.

Posted by dwhudson at October 14, 2007 2:57 PM