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Given that The Red Balloon, Albert Lamorisse’s award-winning 1956 short, has amassed several generations of admirers, it’s not surprising that one of the film’s fans would pay tribute in his own way. Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s new movie, Flight of the Red Balloon, isn’t a remake so much as a tip of the hat to Lamorisse’s classic. Once again, a young boy (Simon Iteanu) finds the titular object hovering around the Champs-Élysées and gains a silent, floating companion. This time, however, the focus is split with his Chinese nanny (Fang Song) and the boy’s harried mother (Juliette Binoche, sporting an odd blond ’do). Direct references are scattered throughout Hou’s subtitled homage—the nanny is also a film student who’s updating the movie—and the powerful symbol of the balloon as a guardian angel watching over a lonely metropolitan boy remains.
