The White Balloon (Film)

1995. Dir: Jafar Panahi. Scr: Abbas Kiarostami.










The Film:


The film's ending belies any reading of the film as charming fluff about cute children. Razieh retrieves her banknote, which disappeared down a grating, with the help of an Afghan balloon-seller [the narrative switches focus]. She departs without thanking him, buys the goldfish and returns home. The film concludes with off-screen sounds [important throughout the film as a tactic, e.g. the father shouting off-screen] of a clock ticking down to New Year and fireworks - and finally, a long-held freeze-frame of the Afghan refugee boy with his white balloon. Although both he and the white balloon have scarcely entered the film, this final, unexpected freeze-frame claims our attention and 'feeds back into and modifies the whole preceding "charming" narrative'.18 The Afghan is left alone; he has no home to go to. A harsh absent reality is rendered present - namely Afghan refugees, Iran's most mistreated minority.







Reception:
"A particular target was Panahi's debut feature The White Balloon, a story written by Kiarostami about a seven-year-old girl, Razieh, who loses her money in Tehran's streets on her way to buy a goldfish for New Year celebrations. The White Balloon won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1995 and became the most lucrative foreign-language film in the USA and Europe the following year. In Sight and Sound, Simon Louvish slated the film for shielding the regime's harshness, horror and despair, calling it a 'sentimental piece of slush [which] has had wide distribution in the West at the expense of far better Iranian films'."