'' The White Balloon'' ( fa, بادکنک سفيد , ) is a 1995
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
ian film directed by
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panâhi ( fa, جعفر پناهی, ; born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly associated with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an ass ...
, with a screenplay by
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami ( fa, عباس کیارستمی ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of ...
. It was Panahi's feature-film debut as director. The film received many strong critical reviews and won numerous awards in the international film fairs around the world including the
Prix de la Camera d'Or at the
1995 Cannes Film Festival. ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' has listed this film as one of the 50 best family films of all time. The film is on the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
The film was selected as the Iranian entry for the
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the
68th Academy Awards
The 68th Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1995 in the United States and took place on March 25, 1996, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles begi ...
, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Iran unsuccessfully tried to withdraw the film from contention but the academy refused to accept the withdrawal.
Plot
It is the eve of the
Iranian New Year. The film opens in a
Teheran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
market where seven-year-old Razieh (
Aida Mohammadkhani) and her mother are shopping. Razieh sees a goldfish in a shop and begins to nag her hurrying mother to buy it for the festivities instead of the skinny ones in her family's pond at home. Almost all of the film's major characters are briefly seen in this market scene, though they are not introduced to the viewer until later. On their way home, mother and daughter pass a courtyard where a crowd of men has gathered to watch two snake charmers. Razieh wants to see what is happening but her mother pulls her daughter away, telling her that it is not good for her to watch these things.
Back home, Razieh is upset about her mother's refusal to let her buy a new goldfish, and continues to nag her mother. Her older brother Ali (Mohsen Kalifi) returns from a shopping errand for their father. He complains that he asked Ali to buy shampoo, not soap, then throws the soap at him. Ali sets off to buy the shampoo and when he returns Razieh asks him to help in changing her mother's mind about the goldfish, bribing him with a balloon. Ali thinks that the 100 tomans cost for the goldfish is a waste of money but helps Razieh in petitioning their mother nonetheless. Her mother gives her the family's last 500-toman banknote and asks her to bring back the change. Razieh sets off with an empty glass jar to the fish shop a few blocks away.
Between their home and the fish store, Razieh manages to lose the money twice, first in an encounter with the
snake charmer
Snake charming is the practice of appearing to hypnotize a snake (often a cobra) by playing and waving around an instrument called a pungi. A typical performance may also include handling the snakes or performing other seemingly dangerou ...
, and then when she drops the money through the grate at the entrance to a store which has been closed for the New Year celebration.
Razieh and Ali make several attempts to retrieve the money and while doing so encounter many people, including a kind older woman at the fish shop, the owners of a nearby shop, and an Iranian soldier. The money, however, is always just out of reach. Finally, the siblings receive help from a young Afghan street vendor selling balloons. He carries all of his balloons on a wooden stick, which has three balloons left. Razieh, Ali, and the Afghan boy are unable to retrieve the note with only the stick, so Ali comes up with the idea of sticking gum to the bottom of the stick to retrieve the bill. Ali leaves to buy gum, but returns without any, and finds that the Afghan boy has left Razieh at the grate. However, the Afghan boy soon returns with his stick, now with only one white balloon, and a pack of chewing gum he bought for the group. The group attaches a piece of gum to one end of the balloon stick, and with it they reach down through the grate and pull the money out.
The film ends, not with Ali and Razieh, but on a still shot of the young Afghan boy, as he sits at the grate watching Ali and Razieh leave for the shop and soon afterwards return home from buying the goldfish. The Afghan boy sits alone with his stick and white balloon for a while, as the Iranian year 1374 begins, then he gets up to walk away.
Reception
John Simon of ''
The National Review
''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...
'' wrote 'Few films are pure delight, but White Balloon is one of these'. The film holds a rating of 82% on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
from 22 reviews with the consensus: "''The White Balloon'' tells a simple yet powerfully effective story through a child's eyes, inviting audiences to see familiar surroundings from a different perspective."
Accolades
*
Prix de la Camera d'Or,
1995 Cannes Film Festival
*Gold Award,
Tokyo International Film Festival
The is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biennially from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter. Along with the Shanghai International Film Festival, it is one of Asia's competitive film festivals, and is considered to be the ...
, 1995
*Best International Film,
Sudbury Cinéfest, 1995
*International Jury Award,
São Paulo International Film Festival
The São Paulo International Film Festival ( pt, Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo), also known internationally as Mostra, is an annual film festival held in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A non-profit event, the festival is organized ...
, 1995
See also
*
*
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Balloon, The
1995 films
1995 drama films
Iranian drama films
Iranian children's films
1990s Persian-language films
Films about fish
Films set in Tehran
Films set in Iran
Films directed by Jafar Panahi
Balloons (entertainment)
Caméra d'Or winners