Flight of the Red Balloon

The shadow of Albert Lamorisse's classic short fantasy "The Red Balloon" (in fact the very image of that magical balloon with a mind and a heart of its own) hovers over Hou Hsiao-hsien's lovely drama. Juliette Binoche, who looks beautiful even when disheveled and at wits end, glows as a puppet theater artist and single mother who is emotionally pulled apart by an absent boyfriend and a deadbeat tenant. 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. No supplements on the disc.