Juliette Binoche anchors (and multitasks in) Hou’s ecstatic new film. By TIM WONG.

HOU Hsiao-hsien’s inquisitive, richly lensed companion piece to Café Lumière finds the Taiwanese shî fu on foreign soil for a second time in honour of a cinematic touchstone: Albert Lamorisse’s beguiling The Red Balloon (also screening at this year’s Festival with White Mane). Yet whereas Hou – whose similarities with Yasujiro Ozu are limited mainly to the sensitive portrayal of women, and a fondness for the interior middle shot – filmed his commemorative Shochiku offering not in style, but tribute, Lamorisse’s beloved children’s picture is a vital kindred spirit. Vibrant, ethereal, and seemingly suspended in mid-air, this delicate homage is no remake or pastiche, but an inheritance of sorts; the eponymous inflatable passed on to Hou as a symbol of levity, of cinema taking flight.

Indeed, the enchanted helium that gave life to Pascal Lamorisse’s spherical friend permeates every frame of Flight of the Red Balloon: staged across Hou’s distinctive, rapturous long takes – masters by regular DP Mark Lee Ping Bing which, to politely contradict an existing review on Lumière, aren’t so much static or austere, but discreetly supple in way they allow the camera to float around the screen space – the film is practically airborne. Set amongst the clutter of a petite Parisian apartment, classically shot lengthwise and through spectrums of natural light, Hou quietly observes the domestic traffic: there’s Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), a single mother and performance puppeteer with too much on her plate; son Simon (Simon Iteanu), a gentle seven-year-old enthralled by a phantom balloon; and Song (Song Fang), a Taiwanese film student, recruited as the boy’s nanny, and shooting her own version of Lamorisse’s film. Visitors, not necessarily invited, include Suzanne’s thorny downstairs tenants, and a blind piano tuner, whose house call initiates Flight’s most rambunctious, rhapsodic scene.

While Flight of the Red Balloon and Café Lumière naturally overlap – Song Fang and Yo Hitoto each play subdued, unspoken foreigners silently consumed by their respective creative projects – Hou’s latest lifts off on the back of Binoche’s eye-catching turn, a freestyle performance entirely of her own making. High-strung and extroverted, she gives rise to a different kind of Hou heroine, still disengaged in her relations and ostensibly alienated by her (albeit glorious) urban surroundings, yet unpredictably vocal, forgoing aimlessness for an impulsive life course. And although Hou’s preoccupations are kept vaguely in check – there are tenuous cultural links to the mainland, brief nostalgic yearnings (through 8mm home movies), and a minor historical underpinning (in Suzanne’s adaptation of a Yang Dynasty play) – this is a film reaching for a higher altitude, where the atmosphere is pure ecstasy. Sealed in its moments, ensconced in the cosy architecture and impressionist hues of Paris, Hou’s movie is splendidly lightweight – a perfectly distilled, yet more accessible than ever, symphony of radiance and fresh air.

Taking the consolation prize, Stephen Chow’s CJ7 joins Flight of the Red Balloon as an unlikely ambassador, even more so with its magnificent obsession (an adorable, pint-sized extraterrestrial), unbridled sense of imagination, and concession to life’s harsh realities (both it and Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame have reinforced just how cruel childhood can be). Chow is hardly a sadist though – his degrading slapstick has now been smoothed over (one instance of rough discipline notwithstanding) – and he subscribes to The Red Balloon’s uplifting final act with a cosmic miracle in turn. That same optimism is generated in the extraordinary Silent Light, where beyond unforseen tragedy, natural order is restored. Not to be outdone, Hou’s masterpiece also looks towards the heavens: Song, climbing to Simon’s rooftop sleep out, finds the boy asleep underneath an open skylight; his dreams having ascended to cloud nine. You’ll have to excuse my overuse of puns, as there’s no other way to extol Flight of the Red Balloon: caught blissfully in its stratosphere, it was days before I came back down to earth.

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» Up and Away: Flight of the Red Balloon