ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiaohsien, 2007) and Air Doll (Kore-eda Hirozaku, 2009) thematize an animist capacity said to be inherent in everyone during childhood. Both films propose that the condition of childhood allows the animist worldview to persist, even in highly modernized urban environments where the sense of wonder and connection to nature may appear diminished. However, rather than portraying the persistence of animism in a celebratory manner, the films dialectically examine the limitations of this worldview by imagining obstacles it might face or disasters it could generate. They thus delineate the ethical and political boundaries of a comprehensive reenchantment of the modern world based on animist principles.
