Reviews

All I knew was that it was a story about a live-in housekeeper/nanny who did not look too happy in the poster image. I also knew that things are complicated when you have help in the household because I am from India where part-time and full-time help are as common as a common sparrow - you notice it only when it makes too much noise. In the very first scene, Raquel, the maid, looks up from her plate at the kitchen table: her perch, her cage, her refuge. She looks straight at the camera and the spectators find themselves being stared down. Raquel seemed to be saying, "you watch, I'll show you what I can do!" and, "welcome to my life, ever see it from this side?" and because she was in uniform, she seemed to be speaking for all maids all over the world, "it's not funny!" I loved that moment. It spoke volumes. After more than two decades of her most youthful years used up cleaning after the kids, cooking, serving, and staying out of the way yet available when needed, Raquel is spent. Her symptoms include bad headaches, spells of dizziness and a perpetual glowering, smoldering expression, passive-aggressive to say the least. The feverish camera movements are synchronized perfectly with Raquel's perspective and Silva's intentions: to make us appreciate her perspective, the ascent and descent of her everyday life. Rising every morning before everyone else, showering, preparing breakfast and snacks for the kids, sending them to school, serving coffee in bed to her masters, vacuuming, scrubbing, laundering, popping pills as she goes along, and then one day finally falling down the stairs in a fainting spell. It had to be that or I was sure she was going to kill someone. If looks could kill, hers surely would have. Driven by the fear (anger and hurt, really) of losing her "family" spot or being "replaced" by a younger more energetic type, Raquel had started showing signs of abnormal and anti-social behavior. When the decision to hire a new maid is finally announced, it is received as nothing less than a declaration of war. It's betrayal, blackball, and banishment, and since Raquel apparently has no where else to go, she fights for what she believes is hers alone. Locking the new maids out of the house, using liberal doses of sarcasm, hiding food from the kids, scrubbing bathtubs with Clorox each time the new maids shower in it… even getting rid of the new kitten who would seemed to be threatening to take her place in receiving whatever little love and affection she gets from the kids. Silva never lets us decide who is going to win.

The first additional help hired is a young Peruvian girl who probably symbolizes the current reality in big cities such as Santiago where many Peruvians work as housemaids. Sarcasm directed at the new arrival highlights the intercultural tension present just below the surface of things: "So, you're obviously going to feed Peruvian fare to the family!" This continues for a while until, of course, the good-natured Lucy shows up, and, little by little, wins Raquel's friendship and heart, and provides the opportunity for a dignified exit to all concerned. Sebastián Silva managed to make me laugh about a dark subject by capturing the human elements out of a sea of depressing and gloomy facts: an unorganized, unaccounted for, underpaid, overworked, silent, oft-abused and more-oft simply ignored group of workers. The dark uniform with white collar and front plastic zipper is a great touch. It helps eliminate any tell-tale signs of the life and context of the donner and provides an even and nameless exterior soothing any guilt the employer might harbor. I kept shifting in my seat trying to get comfortable and realized later that perhaps my unease had to do with the fact that Silva reminded me about how socio-economic differences and race play themselves out in reality, about how people are most comfortable within the circle of their own class (when Lucy takes Raquel home to spend Christmas together), how class differences alienate and isolate, and how they are simply there, that's all there is to it. These days, most middle- class families that hire domestic help get part-time help to cook, clean, do laundry and dusting so that the masters can go to work and not have to worry about it all when they get home tired after a day's work. Many Westerners would be less able to relate to this film for lack of experience in this area. Many others would. For it's not just in countries like Chile and India that there is domestic help. We have it here in the US as well. Raquel, being a live- in maid, though, complicates matters a lot. A live-in maid suggests that she is working for a wealthier family who can afford to have someone provide a gentle wake-up call in the morning with coffee in bed. Raquel does not go home to a family (remember the heart- wrenching scene when she cries uncontrollably while talking to her mother we never see), she does not have a life of her own or hobbies to pursue during her time off, and she does not know how to (cannot) get herself out of it. While Raquel is considered "family" by her employers — Pilar certainly makes an effort to treat her with kindness and concern — the subtitle of the movie reads "she's more or less family." In that euphemism resides, in my humble opinion, the core of this dark comedy. After the film, as we were walking back to the parking garage on 2nd street, Katharine remarked (I paraphrase), "you know, I read somewhere that after the film was made, the director's real maid saw it and took off, deciding to get a (new) life!" For this 30-year old director the film has earned a lot of fame, and for his maids, it has earned freedom,

This morning when I looked at "The Flight of the Red Balloon" lying on our bistro table waiting to share its journey with me, I realized that I had been avoiding watching it because of how much I love Albert Lamorisse's Red Balloon from 1956. I would like to believe that it's a staple of every household (not just French), every language and art teacher's classroom, and a necessity for anyone who dares to let loose their imagination and dreams.

The first scene itself grabbed me with young Simon talking to a red balloon outside the subway entrance, so I settled down and let myself enjoy the rest. It spread a warmth inside me like when soft morning sunlight streams in through closed windows--all is lit, quiet, still, warm, and happy--oblivious of that which might have transpired the day before, lovingly inviting you to a fresh and a new beginning full of possibility.

Hou Hsiao Hsien, the 60-year-old born-in-China-raised-in-Taiwan filmmaker, packs in so much and with such adroitness that he makes everything seem simple.

The broader context of the film is dark -- frankly, realist -- a single mom, Suzanne, juggling work and care for her children (one of whom is away at school). In her struggle Suzanne races to get it to it all but winds up diluting the quality time she would spend with her 7- year old, Simon, were she not so devoted to her career in puppetry and theater (Juliette Binoche is brilliant as she gives voice to the puppets).

The child minder she hires is a Taiwanese film student, Song, who is quiet and aloof in her own way, her attention divided between taking care of Simon's needs and making progress on her film making project--a tribute to Lamorisse's Red Balloon.

Simon is self-absorbed as well. He moves from one thing to another, seamlessly, propelled by instinct and sub-consciously felt needs and desires, just as a boy his age would. We watch him practice piano, play on his Playstation, go for long walks in town with Song, speak to the red balloon, talk on the telephone, use the digital movie camera to help Song make her film, and register the adult world conflict and strife albeit peripherally.

Three different worlds and levels of consciousness and isolation. Yet, no one seems to make undue demands of one another and everyone seems to try to accommodate others' needs, and in doing so they spin a delicate web of verbal and mostly non-verbal communication-- facial expressions, body language, decor, and silence--as they meet the challenges of modern day living. Hou is able to find the reassuring simplicity in this complex world, and that's what tempers the dark hues and keeps the spirits high.

Explaining in an interview with Mathieu Menossi of événe.fr (January 2008) why he chose to re-make Lamorisse's film, Hou says, --and I translate this from French -- It's been fifty years since the original Red Balloon came out, but for me it persists like an old spirit. A soul that did not depart but continued on it's journey to contemplate our current world. (my translation)

Hou also says, --again, my translation -- The red balloon represents what resides in all of us in the form of childhood sensibilities and instinct and passion. And from my point of view, the red balloon is me, as the director.

The red balloon seems to watch over and observe everyone at play from a distance. It tells us that hope and color survive in adverse circumstances. While it does not interact with the characters in this story--save the very first scene--it does interact with us, the spectators, and has been placed there for us. The red balloon IS us, silently bobbing along, hovering, eavesdropping... It's Hou reminding us that we, too, can be playful and buoyant , rising above the vicissitudes of life that seem to tie us down. And since the balloon is silent, we can supply our own dialog as needed to complete our own story of the "flight." Ironically, but happily, we are captives of Hou's machinations.

Hou did not try re-make the same film. He paid homage to the original film by making another beautiful film, symbolically related to its predecessor. And in doing so, he also forced us to ask the question about the place and influence art has in our lives today. This is also a nod to music (piano lessons), painting (Félix Valloton's tableau in the Musée d'Orsay), oral folk traditions (the revival of puppetry as a valid and precious art form of its own), and of course the 7th art (Song making a film using her digital movie camera to pay homage to Lamorisse). The inter-textuality and the mingling of different cultures is particularly elegant and appropriate given the times we live in today.

Using the opposition between dark and light, banality and magic, pragmatism and innocence, adulthood and childhood, just like in Félix Vallonton's "le ballon" from 1899, Hou has created a masterpiece that offers layers of color and texture to the viewer with a patient eye.