Three years ago, I watched the 1956 Lamorris version of the short film "The Red Balloon", about the loneliness of a little boy, the red balloon is his partner and protector. I've always wondered how the red balloon that appeared in the shot kept jumping behind the boy. Three years later, at the Debussy Cinema, I saw Hou Hsiao-hsien's version of The Red Balloon. In fact, I felt that the setting and relationship between the two films were completely different, except for the boy and the Red Balloon.
Hou Hsiao-hsien started with the floating of the red balloon, photographing the red balloon as if it were alive. The first character to enter the film is a boy Simon, with the red balloon following him, as in the short film version. But then, the film's second character, Song Fang, appears as the Chinese student Simon's mother invited to take care of him. "Red Balloon" became the beginning of their chat. Song Fang told Simon about her origins, saying that she was a film student from Beijing, and she hoped to make a short film called "Red Balloon". She told Simon about the 1956 edition. "Red Balloon". I think the director may just let them express themselves in their daily life when filming all the scenes involving boys and Song Fang. The director just records and leaves the parts he wants.
Binoche plays a busy puppet voice actor in the film, emotional and restless. Maybe that's how Binoche really is in life, because her heroine has the same name as herself. She lives alone with her son, her room is crowded and her work is busy. The relationship between Binoche and his son is not what the media said before, because he found that he missed his son's growth. In fact, Simon is sometimes precocious in his relationship with his mother, caring about his mother's life and work in his own way.
The red balloons are always floating where Simon can see. Song Fang made a short video of the red balloons and Simon. In the clip, she captures a man covered in green, following Simon's red balloon.
The museum appears at the end of the film, and Simon and his classmates visit the museum. He got away from his classmates and looked up to the big glass of the museum where there was a red balloon that had been accompanying him from nowhere or where he was going. Simon's words have always been very few, just like Dongdong in "Dongdong's Holiday". Is it true that such children are too sensitive and precocious enough to imagine a world of their own to protect themselves and adults.
The film ends with the French version of "The Forgotten Times" with a sad temperament.
If I get a chance to meet Hou Hsiao-Hsien, I have a lot of questions to answer. Why is a film student from China to intervene in Binoche's life, and what is their interaction? Why did the girl make a short film about red balloons when she mentioned the 1956 version of "Red Balloons" to a little boy? And what I am curious about is how to shoot the balloon as if it were alive, and being able to control and jump behind the person Hou Hsiao-Hsien has also been realized. I want to know how he did it?
I remember what the author said in "My Name is Red" (the gist is as follows): The theme is not important to the work. If you want to express the theme of sadness, it is not how the content of the work is directly related to sadness, but Talk about how the tone, layout, and light of the work reveal the creator's sadness. Perhaps for a director like Hou Hsiao-hsien, any proposition is a proposition, and what he wants to make is the film he wants to make.
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