Flight of the Red Balloon

If the luscious red orb that sails through “Flight of the Red Balloon” like an airborne cherry looks as if it flew in from another movie, in some ways it did. The film, the latest wonderment from the Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, takes as one of its inspirations Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic, “The Red Balloon,” about a young boy and the talismanic sphere that follows him through the gray streets [...] Vai alla recensione »

WHEN the Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien was commissioned to make a movie in Paris, his first outside Asia, he chose as his starting point Albert Lamorisse’s beloved 1956 short film, “The Red Balloon.” As it happens Mr. Hou, who knew Paris only from a few brief visits, discovered Lamorisse’s very French children’s classic through a fellow outsider.