Flight of the Red Balloon is both a masterful Chekhovian slice of life and a visual celebration of the everyday. Partially inspired by the 1956 children’s classic Le Ballon rouge, the film depicts the day to day life of a young Parisian boy named Simon (Simon Iteanu), his workaholic single mother Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) and the nanny who keeps him company during the day (Song Fang).

While Suzanne, who works as a puppeteer, navigates through financial and personal strains (including a problem tenant and her absentee ex who has run off to Montreal), Simon and his nanny spend time wandering the streets of Paris and visiting parks. The nanny, a Chinese film student, shoots Simon on a camcorder and spends the film piecing together her own short movie inspired by Le Ballon rouge.

While the fleeting plots of the movie are engaging, what really stands out in this film is the visual depiction of the everyday. Director Hou Hsiao-hsien perfectly captures the elegant esthetic of Paris’s parks and boulevards. The cold sunlight that dominates the movie is more like a Vermeer painting than a conventional film.

The pace is languid, with long tracking shots that put into relief every detail of Suzanne’s apartment and the cafés that Simon and his nanny frequent.

A red balloon appears periodically, and the camera follows it as it floats and dances through the sky. At times, the shots reflect a child’s power of observation: the camera is mesmerized by the slow movement of the balloon.

Despite this, the movie never drags. Suzanne’s high-strung, fast-paced personality perfectly balances the nanny’s easygoing attitude. What’s more, by delaying any plot development until the movie is well underway, Hou makes it clear that he won’t deliver a fast-paced movie.

Flight of the Red Balloon seems partly inspired by the world of children and partly by the esthetic of the Old Masters. The purpose of the movie is to observe. We watch Suzanne’s every struggle, the wanderings of Simon and his nanny and, above all, the bustle of the often whimsical city they live in.