This week I watched two of the most visually distinctive films of the year, the dreamy-but-realistically grounded “Flight of the Red Balloon” and the opulent fantasy “The Fall.”

I loved them both, and you can read my reviews on Friday. But after a wrote a blurb about “The Fall” yesterday, I read this coincidental quote from a critic at indieWire who felt compelled to choose sides:

“I’m not ungenerous enough to say certain moviegoers would be wrong to be moved by “The Fall,” and maybe my disapproval is a simple matter of taste for the unassuming over the ostentatious; but I also can’t help but compare it to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s latest, “Flight of the Red Balloon,” a film that so gently and delicately creates a world of enchantment out of the raw elements of everyday life that it proves wonder can be achieved without bludgeoning the viewer into submission.”

I always say that readers shouldn’t rely exclusively on any particular critic, and I advise them to visit consensus review sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. In this instance, “Flight of the Red Balloon” is one of the being hailed as visual poetry, while “The Fall” is getting scolded for emphasizing style over substance.

I say see them both and judge for yourself. But do it on the big screen, at the Tivoli. You owe it yourself.