After two viewings it’s still great, and certainly one of the best films to come out last year. Predictably, I picked up on more details this time, and it was fun watching the characters’ behaviors knowing that they were going to make an important announcement in a few minutes. I didn’t appreciate the ending quite as much this time, I thought that the girls’ dancing was a little too staged, and I thought it was a little unbelievable that this large gathering of teens would be given free reign in that house so shortly after Sylvie was caught shoplifting. But, the overall tone of this film is brilliant, as is the plot. With the decade winding down, this is going to be a defining film for me of these first ten years of the 2000s.
Posted on 12/21/08 at 3:41 AM:
This is the first thing that I have seen by Assayas other than his short in the Paris, Je T’aime compilation, and it almost completely blew me away. Somehow managing to be about everything without being ‘a movie about life,’ the focuses on the three children of a recently deceased parent who try to decide what to do with the deceased belongings, many of it incredibly valuable and sought-after artworks that the Musee D’Orsay and Christie’s have interest in. Most of the film is spent discussing these works and following them as they find their new homes, and it’s all fascinating and gut-wrenching. The film has an energy that reminded me a lot of the last two Desplechin films, dizzyingly energetic displays of family interacting, arguing but still loving each other in a very real and pure way.
The Ozu-esque title seems to refer to the characters who are in the peak of their lives, the middle season of the year. Warm weather, long days. The only problem I had with any of the characters was with Juliette Binoche. Usually she is perfect, and I think that she did her best here, but I think she was miscast. I can buy Binoche as many things, but there was something about her as a money-hungry New York artist that didn’t sit well with me. She wasn’t even all that troublesome. But her make-up was too heavy, and her hair too fake. Maybe it’s because I usually think of her as a mother. She seems like an ideal mother. I’m happy with my mother, but if I could have a new one it might be her, but not in this film. She’s not a big problem, though. Her character, like all of the other major characters, are all pretty complex characters that were constantly on the verge of being unlikable but then charm me in some way.
I also feel like this makes a decent companion piece to Rachel Getting Married, which I also really liked a lot. The ending of this evoked the wedding after-party in Rachel, and is perfect, just like most everything else. This really crept up on me, and I look forward to seeing it again very soon. For now, it shoots right near the top of the year, for me.
This is the only Assayas film you’ve seen?! I certainly won’t pretend to suggest all of his films will thrill you as much as this one, but start with Irma Vep.
Just as you wouldn’t want Binoche to be your mother in this film, I wouldn’t want her to be mine either in Flight of the Red Balloon.
Oh and, though I loved it the whole time, the ending makes the film.
I have to say, there is still something about her in Flight that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.