Seen: Sunday, April 20, 2008
If I have any weakness when it comes to critiquing a film, it's one thing: plot. It is the driving force of American cinema, particularly that coming out of Hollywood; its formulas are tried and true and practically hammered into any movie-goer's head from the time they are toddlers. So it's not so much that I haven't digested the three-act plot structure, it is just the least interesting part of a movie to me personally. That can work for and against me given the movie. If we're talking about a summer blockbuster, for instance, or an early spring release of a chintzy romantic comedy, the odds are I could recite the plot even if I haven't watched the movie. No surprise there, in general those stories are predictable enough. On the other hand, when that rarer gem of a movie experiments with classic structure and plot points, I am usually in a mild daze--at least temporarily.
Lining up who is who, and why he suddenly appeared two scenes ago with the woman (and was he holding the clue in his hand?) always eludes me, always to my own shame and embarrassment. It can get you down, being the dummy who pieces the story together hours after the movie has faded to black. Press notes help immensely in this regard, so do smart friends who can memorize the dialogue of a scene after seeing it only once. But I've only got the notes for probably less than 1% of the movies I see, and even fewer friends with enough patience to summarize the story for me in their free time (though, thank goodness some were around for last year's Bourne Ultimatum!)
With that, it's a lucky day when a movie comes along so pretty and meditative--and in the case of Hou Hsiao Hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon, it manages to be both of these things without a hint of heavy-handedness--that I get to indulge my visual sense without a care in the nearly narrative-free world.
In Flight of the Red Balloon, the audience gets to be Parisian for a couple hours. Paris's marvelous landscape is show in a range of sequences: interior and exterior, panorama and close-up, with a meticulous attention to the mundane and urbane manners of the people in this metropolis. It is a curious and privileged peek at a single French woman's familial dynamic with her young son and his nanny, and also at their politely intrusive neighbors, much like the bird's eye view of the peculiar red balloon that follows little Simon (Simon Iteanu) home and about town. We hover around them, behind curtains and columns, bookshelves, or just beside Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) on the sidelines of a puppet show where she plays a character's voice. Simon sits at the kitchenette table with his nanny Song (Fang Song), and as his mother whirls through the front door and empties a small sack of groceries before them, this simple task has never looked so pleasing.
It is also an idyllic picture of city dwellers, and in the case of Suzanne and Simon who are left to contend with their downstairs neighbors, easily one that is simpler to look at from a distance with a lazy grin than experience firsthand. There's something about this romanticized picture of city life where space is so tight that people's emotions collide publicly like little bumper-to-bumper accidents. Somehow, the idea of Suzanne yelling at me down the stairwell seems so sweet! But again, that's easier to witness onscreen than experience firsthand.
As a foreigner himself to Paris's landscape, director Hou Hsiao Hsien of Taiwanese nationality seems to be taking an indulgent insider's tourist trip for the rest of us. I haven't read any French reviews of the film, but I'd be curious to see how that audience perceived Hou's vision of their city. In any event, Flight was for me what I love most about the movies: pictures that are personal but are not bound to strictures of narrative; the kind that find a relaxed life of their own, and impart something beautiful to their audience, even if there isn't a great overarching message. That much I can get right away, with or without press notes.
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