Flight Of The Red Balloon (PG)

A single mum in Paris (Juliette Binoche) hires a Taiwanese film student (Song Fan) to mind her young son while she prepares a puppet show in an elegant study of urban ennui from Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien. Recreating images from French short The Red Balloon (available in a two-pack if you spend an extra fiver) the result often feels as aimless as that crimson inflatable. But the Three Times director conjures an artful combination of the mundane and the poetic that suggests magic can be found just about anywhere.

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