BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

Albert Lamorisse's 1956 short "The Red Balloon" was a children's film classic in which the title plaything mysteriously followed a little boy around Paris and seemed to stir things up.

The contemporary Paris of Hou Hsaio Hsien's "Flight of the Red Balloon" is already stirred-up enough, at least in the lives of the helium observer's main interests, a frazzled single mom named Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) and her young son Simon (Simon Iteanu). The balloon, then, just kind of shows up and hangs, perhaps as a comforting reminder that, no matter how much everyday trials and frustrations weigh on people, they should remember that they're not alone.

That also seems to be the function of the film's other main character, Song (Song Feng). A film student from Taiwan, she takes a job as Simon's baby sitter while his mom busily pursues doing voice work for puppet theater. She's not a bad mother, and Suzanne clearly loves her son (as well as an older daughter from an earlier relationship, who's in no hurry to return from Belgium to the cramped family apartment). But she can only rely on her art for solace; consequently, then, we can't blame Simon for bonding much more easily with the serene, more present Song.

If all of this sounds like a set-up for some melodramatic histrionics, well, it is and it isn't. As with his well-regarded work in his native Taiwan ("A City of Sadness," "The Puppetmaster," "Flowers of Shanghai"), Hou is more interested in the accretion of everyday details than emotional fireworks. Suzanne is something of a mess, yes, but she is just as likely to be happy and wise as flustered. Song brings a certain serenity into the household, which seems like the film's strangest element; why would an Asian director make his main Chinese character a stereotype and, more, a bit of a cypher? Outside of her studies, we learn nothing about Song's personal life.

Hou made a great effort to shoot "Red Balloon" in the City of Light's nontouristy districts. He's still managed to make an absolutely gorgeous film, but the greater effect is one of real life being lived - by the Parisians, anyway - not some traveler's or even filmmaker's romanticized idea. Actors were encouraged to create their own dialogue, and Binoche especially went to town on Suzanne's neurotic, longing jags.

Hou is the kind of director whose rigorous naturalism you either find exhilaratingly perceptive or kind of boring, depending on what floats your balloon.

bob.strauss@dailynews.com
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FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON

Not rated: language
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Song Fang, Simon Iteanu, Hippolyte Girardot.
Director: Hou Hsiao Hsien.
Running time: 1 hr. 53 min.
Playing: Royal, West L.A.
In a nutshell: A frazzled single mother and her curious young boy are observed by his Taiwanese baby sitter and, yes, a hovering balloon in this engaging but plot-light look at everyday Paris life. In French with English subtitles.