Directed by Jafar Panahi (The Circle,
Crimson Gold, Offside) from a script by Abbas Kiarostami,
this troubling charmer of a film spins yet another variation on one
of the axioms of the Iranian New Wave, the tenacious tot. Tired of her
skinny goldfish, Razieh is dead set on purchasing a fat one, and The
White Balloon tracks her determined efforts, in the face of many
obstacles, to complete this supposedly simple task.
Like many of Kiarostami’s scripts for other directors (including
the harrowing home-alone classic The Key and the absurdist
man versus monolith comedy Men at Work), The White Balloon
is an ingenious creative exercise within claustrophobic constraints.
In this instance, the constraints are temporal, with the events on-screen
unfolding in real time. But the cleverness of the script is only one
component of the film’s success. Panahi expertly calibrates the
minute-to-minute suspense and elicits an indelible performance from
tiny Aïda Mohammadkhani in the lead role. – Andrew Langridge
A small child and a large banknote provide the simple basis on which
this enthralling film is built. It is March 21, the eve of the Iranian
new year, and seven-year-old Razieh wants a goldfish, as is the tradition.
She already has plenty of fish but her heart is implacably set on the
fat one with better fins she's seen in the pet store. She persuades
her mother to give her a banknote and heads off to market. On the way
something terrible happens: she loses the money. As she attempts to
retrieve the precious banknote in order to buy the precious fish, she
encounters all sorts of people in the crowded holiday streets; from
the sinister snake-charmers she's been told to avoid, to a lonely young
soldier without any money.
There's nothing ingratiating or sentimental in this depiction of childhood,
but the little girl is enormously touching in her stubborn determination
and in her obliviousness to the greater disasters that might befall
her. Independent of spirit, she is, of course, entirely dependent on
the mercy of the adult world. While she enlists anyone she can to play
a part in her story, the film and its haunting, unexpected ending make
it very clear that every one of them has a story of their own.
If a kid's pursuit of a goldfish sounds too slight to sustain interest,
you've yet to encounter the Iranian flair for stories involving kids,
or Jafar Panahi's way with this kid and her human environs. The amazingly
natural performances Panahi gets from this cast, along with his faultlessly
graceful visual approach, make the film an unfailing delight from the
first to last. – Godfrey Cheshire
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