Flight of the Red Balloon
IFC Films | Release Date: April 4, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Flight of the Red Balloon is in a class by itself. In its unexpected rhythms and visual surprises, its structural innovations and experimental perfs, its creative misunderstandings and its outré syntheses, this is a movie of genius. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
This is not a children's picture, although it touches on the imaginative powers and emotional resilience of children. It's another slice of Hou's distinctly poetic realism, and as such, also a kind of tribute to Paris -- the Paris of both today and of the older film. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A gem made by a filmmaker who loves life, and knows how to capture its ebb and flow and sweet complication. Read full review
100
Washington PostJohn Anderson
Because it's one of the most beautiful films ever. Because it's a work of art on the order of a poem by Yeats or a painting by Rothko. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Hou's first film made outside of Asia is his most emotionally turbulent, yet he remains, like the balloon, outside looking in, a compassionate but distant observer capturing it all with a graceful restraint and floating beauty that ultimately carried me away with it. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Juliette Binoche is outstanding as a wildly untogether single mother who parks her son with a French-speaking Chinese nanny while she whirls and worries. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's both happy and sad. That's exactly the way to describe Hou's marvelous film as well. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
In The Flight of the Red Balloon, the great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien uses Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 masterpiece "The Red Balloon" as a springboard for his own masterpiece--a distinctively modern and allusive one, yet so tender and plaintive that you understand what Hou is up to on a preconscious level. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
In the end what elevates Mr. Hou’s films to the sublime -- and this one comes close at times -- are not the stories but their telling. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
What Mr. Hou has done is borrow power and some gentle intimations of a state of grace from one of the most enchanting images in movie history. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The camera is so unobtrusive and the acting so naturalistic that it takes a while for a narrative to emerge. When it finally does, you're surprised to find you're deeply invested in the characters. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Hou intends to celebrate the classic 1956 children's film "The Red Balloon," and he has done a beautiful job. In fact, he may well have created a future classic of his own. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The subject is the privileged state of childhood itself - how we're all lucky to have had it and how it so easily floats away from our grasp. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A meditation on art, life, loneliness and the links between friends and strangers, the movie has a grace and humor that's wonderfully inviting. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
For all its fuss and fury, Flight of the Red Balloon succeeds magnificently. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Too much of this film is attenuated and vague, but it has moments of deep melancholy. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin Chang
This eloquent study of loneliness and postmodern drift likely will be received with more admiration than rapture by the helmer's followers. But Juliette Binoche's turn as a harried single mom and pic's enlivening portrait of domestic rupture make this a highly accessible Hou. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Flight was commissioned by producers overseas, and it feels similarly, impeccably slight. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Fans of Hou know just what to expect from his slow, contemplative films - and they won't be disappointed. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
There's not much story here, but the characters are substantial: a single mother (nicely played by Juliette Binoche) who runs a local avant-garde puppet theater and is preoccupied with such matters as a downstairs tenant who refuses to pay rent or leave, her neglected but mainly cheerful son, and his Taiwanese nanny, a filmmaker in her spare time. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Ultimately, though, it's hard not to feel like Hou is saying more explicitly and expansively in nearly two hours what Lamorisse managed to convey in only one-fourth as much film. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The balloon will resurface throughout, but far more interesting, and substantial, is the slow reveal of Simon's domestic situation. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Not surprisingly, we're left with characters that feel only half sketched and fail to resonate on their own -- but onto which much can be read by Hou's most ardent fans -- in a poetic looking film that's ultimately as inflated and empty as the balloon itself. Read full review
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