Synopsis
Several people try to take advantage of a little girl's innocence to hustle money her mom gave to her to buy a goldfish with.
Several people try to take advantage of a little girl's innocence to hustle money her mom gave to her to buy a goldfish with.
El globo blanco, Badkonake Sefid, Den hvite ballongen, Белый шар, Il palloncino bianco, Der weiße Ballon, A fehér léggömb, Le Ballon blanc, 하얀 풍선, O Balão Branco, 白气球, Το άσπρο μπαλόνι, 白い風船, Beyaz Balon, Valkoinen ilmapallo, Den vita ballongen, 白氣球
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
The sea is rough brother, the sea is rough.
The ending might be the most fascinating and haunting part at the same time. Throughout the film, you think it’s all building up to this one satisfying moment where Razieh finally getting her hands on the goldfish. But it never gets shown to us. Instead, the focus quietly shifts. We end up with the Afghan balloon seller boy the one who helped them get the money back.
And he's just sitting there, quiet, unnoticed. He doesn’t get a thank you, not even a glance from the kids. And then the film ends a still frame of him standing with a white balloon in his hand. That’s it.
And somehow, that’s what hits the hardest. It’s sad in a quiet, powerful way. It shows that sometimes the most meaningful stories are the ones left untold the ones that stay in the background, unacknowledged.
'You call these goldfish, you haven't seen the others! It's as though they're dancing when they move their fins.'
Iranian cinema is the expression of purity. Kiarostami writes an angel in human form, a little girl of 5 or perhaps 7. As she descends into our lives, she still stays an angel – the angel of the everyday beauties we are perpetually blind to. She is Innocence but she is never one-dimensional. She is fierce when she protects her brother and smart when she quips back at the soldier playfully taunting her. Iranian cinema is the expression of life. The plot is non-existent, the scene a conversation between the little girl and the soldier. 'You know, my little sister's your…
Here’s your little fish. All pretty and round.
But this one is all skinny. I wanted a chubby one.
You’re looking at it from above. It looks skinny that way. Watch now!
See how big it is? You have to look at it this way. It’s round and pretty, a real beauty. Take it!
(little girl starts smiling)
I chose the above quote on one hand because it is simply beautiful and heart-warming. The exact feeling this film leaves you with. On the other hand, because it also says something about the film itself and how things can be viewed from different perspectives. This film makes great use of symbolism and underlying meanings for images and the script in order…
Now why the hell does the snake charmer have such crazy beef with a little girl 💀
The ending of this film really knocked the wind out of me, so quiet but yet so incredibly impactful.
“it’s as though they’re dancing when they move their fins.”
The White Balloon (1995), the debut film of Jafar Panahi, written by Abbas Kiarostami, carries that very special tone Iranian cinema so often finds, something that blends modern fable and social realism. The stories are simple, even minimalist, and open into something poetic and symbolic while staying rooted in everyday life. Almost nothing happens, and yet everything unfolds.
There’s something almost miraculous about how the film condenses the entire world into the smallest possible quest. Razieh (Aida Mohammadkhani) wants a goldfish, a special kind, and suddenly that desire becomes everything. Panahi locks us into her perspective, a little girl moving through the streets of Tehran with tears hovering in her…
Pure humanist filmmaking distilled down to its most heartwarming and simplistic. Jafar Panahi shows how little you need to make an affecting piece of cinema with The White Balloon. Aided by a fantastic screenplay penned by Kiarostami, it’s no wonder this brilliant film works as well as it does. Abbas Kiarostami’s films are empathy on celluloid, and this is no exception, despite only writing it. This is the first of Panahi’s works I have seen, but I have a feeling that he and Kiarostami share this ability to convey so much through these basic tales of childhood innocence and striking morality.
The balloon itself is a clear representation of purity. Our protagonist—a seven-year-old girl named Razieh—wants a goldfish from the…
Jafar Panahi #02
Wonderful movie 🎬
Jafar Panahi RANKED
"You want to pay 100 tomans for a goldfish. You can watch two films with that money. You're nuts."— Ali.
Everything about The White Balloon annoyed me— until I realized they’re all just kids. It tells the story of a little girl who wants to buy a goldfish, but loses her money down a drain. Things get unexpectedly complicated, but the ending touched me. Ohh, the balloon seller boy deserved a thank you, but he got nothing 😔
Then again, they’re all just children, aren’t they?