Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8308 in VHS
• Released on: 1997-07-29
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Color, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Persian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Amazon.com
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Iran began to be recognized as a refreshing source of low-budget, wryly naturalistic filmmaking, and Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon (winner of the Camera d'Or award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival) was the first Iranian film to get a U.S. art-house release. Simple and spare yet filled with observant detail, it's a mild, beguiling movie about a 7-year-old girl's tenacious quest to buy a cherished goldfish for her family's New Year's Day celebration. That's really all there is to it, but it's wonderfully warm, funny, and generous in spirit. With an almost miraculous ability to capture moments and reality unhindered by the presence of a camera and crew, Panahi handles this seemingly trivial story as a child's emotional odyssey, set amidst the daily rhythms of Teheran as a city where kindness and cruelty can be found in close proximity. Anyone interested in international films and filmmakers should give this one high priority on their list of must-see movies. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

SUBTLE AND SIMPLE
The Iranian cinema industry is filled with charming films like this one. It is very subtle and understated... a tale of a little girl who wishes so much for a goldfish she sees when she and her mother are passing through the city together. She is convinced that the goldfish they see in the shop is fatter, more beautiful and superior to the goldfish they already have swimming in the pond in their courtyard at home. She begs her mother for the money to get the goldfish, but her mother denies it. The little girl then enlists her older brother's help to get the money. Eventually she succeeds in getting the money, but this is only the beginning of her adventure. At many times throughout the film, an odyssey through Tehran on Iran's New Year's Day (which I believe falls in March), the little girl and the money part company, and she has to struggle to find it and retrieve it. The story is charming and heartwarming. Iran's film censors are very strict about what they allow, so films like this are the standard fare. The films themselves are actually quite telling about everyday life in modern Iran, and I think these elements are the most telling of all. Unlike in western (particular American) cinema where you are beat over the head with parables and themes and lessons, these Iranian films just present a story simply and let you conclude whatever you like.

Deceptively simple story-telling at its best
Simply put, determined seven-year-old girls are one of the constants of the universe, and little Razieh is an excellent example of this. While not exactly spoiled, she is nonetheless sheltered from some of tense dynamics within her family --- and unfortunately, a stressed out mother and a father prone to violent outbursts also are far too easy for people across the world to relate to.

For Razieh, it is all pretty simple --- the quest for the extra-chubby goldfish, and dealing with the twists and turns of achieving her goal. Every child has been a situation like this, and for those of us who can remember how it felt, this movie is a fascinating and deceptively simple tale.

The world can be a pretty scary place for a seven-year-old, and this movie brings that home quite powerfully. One feels especially the ominous presence of a not particularly benign government. in the form of an intimidating military presence.

The movie's success rests on the ability of the girl playing Razieh to deliver her lines while retaining that natural little girl quality. This she does magnificently. She is irresistably cute (and knows it) but also can be a real pain in the ass when she doesn't get what she wants. She is also overwhelmed by the world outside, but has enough resourcefulness to stick up for herself when she is being dealt with unfairly (as with the snake charmer).

She also conveys the power of loss, and reminds the viewer that just because an adult may regard something as trivial, it is nonetheless very real and very devastating to a child, and that the despair of loss for the child is as real as anything an adult might experience. The moment when Razieh is at the pet shop and realizes that she has lost her bank note --- where she realizes that she is really screwed and also in big big trouble --- is as moving a scene in the cinema as I have seen.

Some viewers may find life as it actually happens to be pretty boring cinema, and I suppose in the wrong hands it could be extremely boring, but not in this case. This has remained one of my favorite foreign films of all times. I look forward to my not-quite one-year-old daughter reaching Razieh's age, so that I can begin to appreciate the similarities. I sure she will drive me crazy just like Razieh would.

precious
This movie, although set in a culture that may be foriegn to many of us, crosses these boundaries. It reminds us that all children have many of the same qualities. They are all innocent and see life different than adults do. The little things are not so little to them. What may be insignificant to adults may mean the world to them. Watching this movie made me stay glued to the set. I couldn't wait to see how the children fared. I was actually finding myself nervous for the little girl, as though I were the child who lost what seemed to her like all the money in the world. I could watch this movie again and again, inspite of the fact that it has a slower pace than most popular movies of today.