Last night we went to see a movie at our awesome art theater. Here is the description straight from the website.
Flight of the Red Balloon
Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou, Country: France, Release: 2007, Runtime: 113, Rating: NR, Language: in French with subtitles
“A work of tremendous precision and heartfelt emotion, made by one of the great artists in the medium.” (Salon.com)
Starring Juliette Binoche, this exquisite homage to the original Red Balloon is by one of cinema’s masters, the Taiwanese director Hsiao-Hsien Hou (The Puppetmaster, Flowers of Shanghai). Receiving rave reviews at last year’s Cannes, this subtle and lyrical meditation on childhood and loss is told through the quiet story of a young boy in Paris and his harried mother (Binoche, in a marvelous performance), whose life is slowly fraying at the seams. Not for children.
Both of us wanted to walk out. Mike ended up sleeping through a fair amount of the movie. First of all, I still do not have any idea how it was a homage to the original movie. They kept showing a red balloon floating around at times with some really dull piano music. It just appeared like they were trying way to hard. As Homer would say, "Less Artsy, More Fartsy". I sensed we were in trouble when a character in the movie raved about a movie she saw, because it was so real. It was really like watching paint dry with absolutely no plot. I could have stared into space at home and been more entertained. There was no intellectual challenge either. Here are some quotes from Mike:
"I think I want to do some taxes when we get home; it would be more exciting than that movie"
"I liked Barney's submission to the Springfield Film Festival better"
"Forget the $20, I want my life back"
I lamented that we could have snuck over to the other screen and saw part of "Where in the World is Osama?" Grandma would have appreciated that one. It also reminded me of a movie I saw with Ann and Kevin years ago at the DIA. The first 10 or 15 minutes was a guy drinking tea. At least that movie picked up when the old lady used a basket as a marital aide!
4 comments:
LMAO...
I can just hear M's tone. I think that you should tack on the time you stewed this over and wrote this all down which probably puts you past the 2 hour mark for life lost.
Reminds me of taking J to see "March of the Penguins" when he was three. Yet another French masterpiece. I think the problem here is that the French don't know entertainment (I refer you to their fascination with Jerry Lewis).
that country shoudl stick to food :)
-P
The funny thing was it was a Chinese director for a French flick.
Yeah, clearly even his own countrymen (well known for the opium trade) were smart enough to suggest the French might appreciate his ideas :)
Hilarious.
When I started reading, I thought of the basket movie and was going to bring it up. Then I saw you already did. Too funny.
KC
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