SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

johnstonjames get real. how could you take a cute, lively, colorful little children's film gem and extract something so talky, tedious, pretentious and dreary out of it? well they did and it doesn't work.i mean this movie really stunk. i grew up watching the original 'Red Balloon' and i always loved and enjoyed it. especially when i was very little i was delighted by it and i remember it being one of the first movies i ever cried during (the other was 'Snow White', but i think i was crying because i was scared sh--less). the original balloon was a sensitive, lovely little film with a timely message. not 'Flight'. it's just a big pretentious dud full of hot air and a message that is overly complicated and lost. that's NOT 'The Red Balloon'.how can you take a film that has such wonderful simplicity and turn it into something so unnecessarily complicated? as far as film making goes 'Flight' misses the point of the original's approach. the original film was told visually and with no real dialogue. this film was so dialogue driven and full of talk that i became glassy-eyed and detached. no real feeling here at all. you shouldn't make 'The Red Ballon' so cerebral. it loses all impact.i wish i could say i fell asleep during this, but i sat through the whole boring thing until the end. whatever message this film is supposed to have just got lost in all the talky tedium. yeeesh! it's supposed to based on a kid's classic. lighten up.

ametaphysicalshark You know, maybe I'm just a complete idiot. I saw this film at TIFF in 2007 on a cluttered day of movie-watching and restaurant-hopping. I assumed I didn't like it because I was tired and unable to focus. So, in the best circumstances possible, I gave it another chance. Same reaction. The movie certainly looks lovely, and there are some really spectacular shots, I especially loved the one around half-way through the movie when the camera looks out of a train window and you think you're seeing the sky, but when the train passes by some trees you realize it was a reflection. So much of this movie just didn't work for me though, and as much as I try to see what others like in it, it just feels so mundane and inconsequential to me that it honestly felt like a total waste of time, an idea good for a short which didn't work as a feature. The film is certainly not empty, I wouldn't say that, but I just never could warm to it, partially I think due to the dull characters.

crey014 Art of a very high order, Hsiao-hsein Hao directs the Musee d'Orsay commissioned "The Flight of the Red Balloon", a stand-alone film paying homage to the Lamorisse's 1956 film favorite "The Red Balloon". Directed with class and elegance, although stumbles in indulgent overextended shots and pacing problems, it pays dividends to the patient as we are welcomed into a claustrophobic apartment inhabited by a mother and son struggling to come to grips with a marital separation. The film knows its audience and it caters to them loyally, however won't convert any non-believers.Although not explicit, the sense of chaos is however present right from the point where we enter Suzanne and Simon's apartment in Paris. Clearly not in control of her marital and maternal situation, she drowns herself in work as a puppet show narrator where she can control the fantastic as opposed to her real and disorganized state. Enter Song, a film student who acts as Simon's surrogate as his mother deals with this transitional process.The film's screenplay is as light as a helium balloon, we enter their micro-cosmos through Song, almost this film's allegory towards the original's red balloon as its voyeuristic anchor – nonjudgmental and omnipresent. Although certain scenes clearly leads to nowhere, they are nonetheless welcome as it highlights the reality of the situation and also the characters' desire to reach back to normal. It is clear here, Suzanne desires a somewhat 'normal' family life: almost pleading for her eldest daughter to move back to Paris and for his ex-husband's friend/tenant to leave the property. A daughter of divorce, she knows it is imperative that a routine has to be established.The way Hao films this, it has this odd certain detachment towards the characters, almost a "Wings of Desire" approach, static camera in tow. We see a single mother in despair but the audience isn't allowed to feel anything about it: almost factual. Binoche personifies Suzanne with a quiet dignity and pride that her devastation is disallowed to be brought to the surface, but of course, when things build up to a boil, we can sense her immediate discomfort and frustration.What seems like a nonchalant Simon, he is clearly affected too, as he can't even distinguish his own family tree, to the effect that even the audience can be driven to confusion. He becomes distant to his own mother, finding solace through nostalgia with a long summer with his sister. He and Suzanne's relationship is also obviously affected, as most of the film, they indulge in small talk and when the mother desires for an eye to eye contact, he looks away.The decision to film this in a calming atmosphere as opposed to the chaos in the characters' is a smart idea: it highlights the juxtaposition even more. As opposed to the Lamorisse classic, the maternal figure here is in focus. The film works within its parameters and Hao does not belittle its audience – of course, only to those willing to be engulfed by it.

Seamus2829 Note:anyone who fancies the cinematic overkill bombast of Jerry Bruckheimer,Michael Bay,Roland Emerich,etc.....PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM! That said,'Flight Of The Red Balloon' is a beautiful little film on the human condition. It comments on the Eurocentric lifestyle, as viewed through the Asian perspective. The story concerns a single mother,played to perfection by Juliette Binoche (always welcome on screen,as I've been an ardent fan of her work since 'The Unbearable Lightness Of Being')trying to raise her young son (Simon Iteanu),with an older daughter away at school, all without her absent husband. Also in the mix is an attractive young film student from Taiwan (played by Song Fang)who has been hired as Simon's Au pair,who fits in nicely among the others. Taiwan director Hou Hsiao Hsien (Flowers Of Shanghai, Three Times)has crafted a film that is mesmerizing to look at. Despite the rather hum drum goings on that transpire that in the hands of another director would be unwatchable, Hsien manages to make every day events seem dreamy. The film is a homage (of sorts)to Albert Lamorisse's now legendary film short,'The Red Balloon',in which the balloon acts as companion to a lonely French boy. The balloon,in this case acts as a narrative device,bringing the individual elements together (the humans)for nearly two hours that you can't tear your gaze from.