Der weiße Ballon

Abbas Kiarostami wrote this film, which is very much like his 1987 masterpiece, Where Is the Friend's Home? That film had a young boy trying to give back some other boy's homework that he accidentally took home. This one has a little girl having all kinds of problems trying to buy a goldfish on New Year's Eve. Each of these children have to navigate their way through a world of adults in a culture where the young are to be seen, but not heard. The earlier film is quite a bit better than The White Balloon, but this is a wonderful film in its own right. It has a wonderful set piece where a street performer thinks that the girl is donating the money she has for her goldfish to a snake charmer. She has to work up the courage to speak up for herself, and then to take the money when it has been wrapped around a snake. My only real problem with the film was the lead performance, by Aida Mohammadkhani. She has really nice facial expressions, but her voice and line delivery are monotonous; truth be told, she gets kind of obnoxious after a while. Mohsen Kalifi, who plays her older brother, is wonderful, on the other hand. I really liked the way the sibling relationship was developed. Kiarostami, genius that he is, adds some small details that give the film a much deeper resonance than one might find at first glance (I'd almost call this a trademark of his). The sequence with the titular balloon, along with the haunting final shot, is the kind of thing that could make this film last forever inside of me.

Jafar Panahi was born in 1960. He was the assistent and pupil of Abbas Kiarostami (born 1940). His films are less philosophical but more like Neo Realism Iranian style. As a neo realist he sides with the underdog and this has brought him into conflict with the regime a number of times. In the summer of 2022 he was arrested in order to serve a 2010 sentence

"The white balloon" is situated just before Nowruz. Nowruz is the Iranian new year. It takes place around 21 March, and so it is a real welcoming of Spring and the beginning of the circle of live. It is a much bigger deal than new years day in the Western world. All families come together and in Iran that often entails a lot of travelling. So the preparation for Nowruz can be a rushed and stressful time and during this time not everybody has time for a little girl that has lost her banknote.

Panahi tells this everyday story from the point of view of the little girl.

Many of the worries of the grown ups turn out to be much more childish than the worries of the little girl.

Nowruz turns out to be a holiday to pay more attention to the members of your family, but certainly not automatically also to your fellow citizens.

In this respect the film resembles the message of "The wind will carry us" (1999) from his mentor Abbas Kiarostami. In this film a TV crew is in a small village to document traditional funeral rituals and is so focused on this aspect of life that the rest of the social interaction with the villagers is highly neglected.

It was my big sister's turn to pick a film to go to when we were gorging ourselves in what the Reykjavik cinema festival had to offer back in the days. Didn't expect anything but mushy boredom for an hour and a half. Instead of the sentimental torture I had braced myself for, I became spellbound by this beautiful story that totally held me captivated right from the beginning to the end. The little girl, Aida who plays the protagonist, was ever so sincere and true in her role that you forgot you were watching a film, and even I felt a couple of masculine tears running down my cheeks. The White Balloon is simply a gorgeous film and it's out of the blue quirky humor elevates it even further. Even with the wet towel slap in the end, I truly loved the whole of this Persian confect buffet down to it's last bit, ... and still do!

It's been said that dissident Iranian filmmakers will use metaphors, children, other countries, etc to express political/social criticism. With that in mind, I want to ask Iranian viewers to comment on these conclusions.

The film is NOT about cute kids. * The girl was told many times that the fish she wanted was NOT bigger than the one she had, but she went after it anyway. * The girl was relentless asking her cash-strapped mother for money for a goldfish, and through annoying persistence got her way.

* But the final scene is the one that seared itself in my mind---the boy and girl run away as soon as they have their money, leaving the Hazara boy sitting there alone, not even thanked.

So I find the film a cleverly veiled attack on the girl's selfish opportunism and lack of feeling for the people who helped her.

If anyone knows Kiarostami or has read any interviews, please enlighten me!!

I recently viewed this movie on Bravo TV and was absolutely spellbound. At first, the Farsi language threw me, but it was delightful after awhile in a melodic sort of way. Plus, the lead character is adorable. Her traumatic experience in buying the goldfish is heartrending and at the same time is enlightening. You will want to turn away for fear that she will not succeed and yet you watch because you know that she will. The movie also helps you to regain a faith in the common goodness of the human race.