Movie Review: The White Balloon

This is an Iranian movie from 1995, based on a story by Abbas Kiarostami, who is supposed to be the grand old daddy of Iranian cinema. I have not had a chance to see anything else by him. The story is really simple. It is the eve of the New Year. A 7 year old girl falls in love with a goldfish being sold in the shop for 100 toman, which is 1/5th of the money her mother has reserved for the New Year gifts. She pesters and pesters and whines & whines but her mother would not hear of it, spending 100 toman on a goldfish, while they have some in the tank in their own courtyard!!!! Of course they are skinny ones not like the plump and beautiful ones in the shop which have 4 fins and they dance!!

Enter her elder brother who must be around 10 and in return for getting a nice Balloon from her he manages to convince their mother to let her buy it. Now the only note her mother has is a 500 Toman note and the little girl takes that from her brother and runs out to the shop, over her mother's warning to be careful with the money. Then it is the story of her in the streets of Tehran running into interesting characters and reaching the shop to discover her money is lost. How she finds it and the people who she runs into are what make the story.

The kids are great in the movie and it is really only them in the movie. I was reminded of another Iranian (children's) movie by Majid Majidi, Children of Heaven. I like these movies which are set in Tehran and have the hustle bustle of the marketplace in the background which the adults are immersed in while the children worry about the more important things in life.:)