Le ballon blanc

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!

I watched this movie totally by surprise. I found out just one hour before that it was scheduled on TV.

It started slowly, maybe too slowly, or maybe too arid, for my taste, to become suddenly so cute, and not only cute, everything on the screen was real time, I was following breathlessly the adventures of the little girl, to find out, exactly at the end, that the movie was about something else.

The White Balloon - you get the meaning of the title only in the last scene, after all movie was about getting the money, loosing and then trying to recuperate them to buy a goldfish.

This movie is not only deceptive, it has multiple levels of deception.

The author of the screenplay is Abbas Kiarostami, and the way it starts looks like a movie by Kiarostami about children (along with grown-ups not understanding the little ones). Where is the Friend's Home comes to mind immediately, only this is beguiling. Here the grown-ups, as estranged from the natural of children as they can be, are eventually willing to help.

Also the little girl is not faultless either. Actually she is a pest. Anything bad that comes is due to her only. She is greedy, cunning, desperate, spoiled. That's it. While she is cute. Well, because all kids her age are the same way: greedy, cunning, selfish, desperate, spoiled; a pest, while extremely cute. That's why we love them.

Is it then a nice comedy about a cute girl who desires a goldfish? Not exactly, that's just another level of deception.

As it comes to the end, we realize the remarkable wholeness of this movie: a close space, just a couple of streets, a very short period of time, just a couple of hours, just a few personages, confined to this small space and time. Each one (not only the girl) is acting somehow frenetically, and the resulting whole is a crazy small universe, absurdly self-sufficient.

These people are acting totally unaware of each other, except when it happens to collide; in these particular situations they fight or cooperate, or do the both, then again each one is unaware of others' presence.

There is however a boy who's the exception, a stranger (an Afghan immigrant)... but you should watch the movie to get it.

In his directorial debut, Jafar Panahi - a devoted pupil of Iranian film-god Abbas Kiarostami - is able to encapsulate the stubbornness and curiosity of a seven-year-old Tehranian girl so authentically (by use of newcomer Aida Mohammadkhani) that we forget that we are watching fiction unfold.

The White Balloon has a continuous feel that is obtained by allowing the story to unravel in real time. An unseen radio informs us that the Iranian New Year is almost upon the town; a tradition for this annual event is to either catch or buy a fish (fish represent life). Razieh, the little girl, is unsatisfied with the selection of fish in the family's pond. She complains that the family's fish are too "skinny." Eventually, Razieh's brother, Ali (Mohsen Kalifi's only role thus far), cons their mother into letting Razieh have a 500 note (Iranian money) to buy the fish that she wants. On her way to the market, Razieh loses the money two times. It is the second loss that is the most serious - the money falls into the cellar of a closed shop through a sidewalk drain. The remainder of the film is devoted to the introduction of various strangers offering either to help retrieve the note or pass the time with light-humored conversation.

Beautiful cinematography (winner of the Camera d'or at Cannes in 1994), memorable characters, and stunning direction backed by Kiarostami's expertly written script make for a great film that was reminiscent of my viewing of John Sayles' Secret of Roan Inish. Like Sayles' film, there is a magical, absorbing quality to The White Balloon that spellbinds the viewer regardless of age.

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.

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.