A lasting impression of life in Tehran

August 21, 1996
Issue 

The White Balloon
Directed by Jafar Panahi
Screenplay by Abbas Kiarostami
Opening at Dendy cinemas August 29
Reviewed by Jennifer Thompson

The delight of this feature film from Tehran is the way it takes a very simple story — the trepidations of a seven-year old girl, Razieh, during preparations for the celebration of the Persian Newroz (new year) — and gives a lasting impression of life in Tehran that has far more in common with our everyday than most westerners would expect. For this, the film won the Camera d'Or for best first feature film at Cannes last year.

The film is ultra-realistic, filmed mostly in real time and partly with the eye-level vista of Razieh (Aïda Mohammadkhani) and her slightly older brother Ali (Mohsen Khalifi). It is March 21 and 90 minutes before the new year celebrations are to begin. Their mother is frantically finishing the preparations for a family celebration, but Razieh is fretting, in the universal way of children, for her mother to buy her the goldfish she desires.

Newroz celebrations include contain important rituals, including remnants of the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism. For the celebration, there must also be a goldfish bowl, the goldfish representing the mystery and joy of life. With the intervention of her brother, Razieh is finally allowed to buy the special dancing goldfish with lots of fins rather than make do with the many ordinary ones in the pond at home.

The trouble starts when the 500 toman note enters Razieh's hands as she speeds off to buy the goldfish. The remainder of the story is her attempts to get to the shop, before closing time, with the money and of the people she meets along the way, especially after the note becomes apparently inextricably stuck in a cellar. The new year countdown is marked by Razieh's encounters, including with things "not good for [her] to watch" and people whom a little a girl should not be chatting with. Gently but unashamedly, director Panahi reveals aspects of Iranian social and economic life.

The mission is first jeopardised when the 500 toman note falls into the hands of a snake charmer. Later Razieh chats, nervously at first, with a poorly paid conscript soldier, unable to afford to return to his family's village for the celebration.

Eventually a refugee "Afghan boy" hawking balloons comes to her and Ali's rescue, and the day is saved. They speed off home just as the new year is welcomed in, leaving their saviour sad and lonely, holding his hawker's pole bearing one unsold white balloon, while the rest of Tehran celebrates. n

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