So much average

Perfect cast and a good story

People are voting emotionally.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This Iranian film was one I found listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was selected as an entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, but was not accepted as a nominee, I hoped it would be worthwhile. Basically in Teheran, it is the eve of the Iranian New Year, seven-year-old Razieh (Aida Mohammadkhani) has seen a goldfish in a shop and begins nagging her hurrying Mother (Fereshteh Sadr Orfani) to buy it for the festivities instead of the skinny ones in her family's pond at home. On their way home, the mother and daughter pass a crowd of men gathered to watch two snake charmers, Razieh wants to see what is happening, but her mother pulls her away. Back home, Razieh is upset her mother is refusing to let her a new goldfish but continues her campaign of nagging. Her older brother Ali (Mohsen Kalifi) returns from a shopping errand for their father, he is unseen, but his presence causes tension in the family, he complains that we asked for shampoo, not soap. When Ali returns with the shampoo, Razieh enlists his help in changing her mother's mind about the goldfish, bribing him with a balloon, insisting she can buy it for 100 tomans. Razieh finally gets her wish, her mother gives her the family's last 500-toman banknote and asks her to bring back the change, she sets off with an empty glass jar to the fish shop a few blocks away. On the way, Razieh stops to watch the snake charmers, one of them takes the banknote from her to wrap around a snake, tempting her to grab it back, but they eventually give it back to her, seeing that she is getting upset. Then while running to the shop, she stops outside a cake shop for a moment, she reaches the shop selling goldfish, but then she realises she has lost her money. An Old Woman (Anna Bourkowska) takes pity on Razieh and helps her to retrace her steps and find the banknote, it is found in a grate that leads to the basement of a shop. After the old woman leaves, the money has fallen into the grate and the basement of the shop, which is closed for the New Year celebration. Ali comes along, as his sister has been gone for some time, together they try to find a way to retrieve the money and receive help from many people, including the Tailor shop owner (Mohammad Bakhtiari) next door and an Iranian soldier (Mohammad Shahani). The money is just out of reach, but the fish shop owner promises he will try not to sell the fat white and orange goldfish until the little girl returns. Finally, the siblings receive help from a young Afghan street vendor (Aliasghar Samadi) selling balloons, he carries his balloons on a wooden stick, he has a white one left. The group attach a piece of chewing gum to the end of his stick, and with it, reach down into the basement through the grate and pull the money out. In the end, Ali and Razieh run off to buy the goldfish, leaving the balloon seller sitting alone on the grate, the siblings pass him and are happy to finally have the fish, and the change, and the boy walks away with his white balloon. Also starring Hamidreza Tahery as Reza and Asghar Barzegar as the Pet Shop Manager. It is a very simple story, a journey of discovery for a little girl desperate to buy a goldfish, and her desperate attempts to get the money back to buy it, Mohammadkhani is cute, and her insights make the ordinary seem miraculous, it is slow and annoying in parts, but overall it is a delightful drama. Good!

I watched this movie totally by surprise. I found out just one hour before that it was scheduled on TV.It started slowly, maybe too slowly, or maybe too arid, for my taste, to become suddenly so cute, and not only cute, everything on the screen was real time, I was following breathlessly the adventures of the little girl, to find out, exactly at the end, that the movie was about something else.The White Balloon - you get the meaning of the title only in the last scene, after all movie was about getting the money, loosing and then trying to recuperate them to buy a goldfish.This movie is not only deceptive, it has multiple levels of deception.The author of the screenplay is Abbas Kiarostami, and the way it starts looks like a movie by Kiarostami about children (along with grown-ups not understanding the little ones). Where is the Friend's Home comes to mind immediately, only this is beguiling. Here the grown-ups, as estranged from the natural of children as they can be, are eventually willing to help.Also the little girl is not faultless either. Actually she is a pest. Anything bad that comes is due to her only. She is greedy, cunning, desperate, spoiled. That's it. While she is cute. Well, because all kids her age are the same way: greedy, cunning, selfish, desperate, spoiled; a pest, while extremely cute. That's why we love them.Is it then a nice comedy about a cute girl who desires a goldfish? Not exactly, that's just another level of deception.As it comes to the end, we realize the remarkable wholeness of this movie: a close space, just a couple of streets, a very short period of time, just a couple of hours, just a few personages, confined to this small space and time. Each one (not only the girl) is acting somehow frenetically, and the resulting whole is a crazy small universe, absurdly self-sufficient.These people are acting totally unaware of each other, except when it happens to collide; in these particular situations they fight or cooperate, or do the both, then again each one is unaware of others' presence.There is however a boy who's the exception, a stranger (an Afghan immigrant)... but you should watch the movie to get it.

The White Balloon is a movie which banks upon it's unbelievably simple story and settings. Shot almost entirely in just about three locations within a locality the movie comes across as a beautifully made spectacle of new wave cinema .The Director does well to capture the moments in lens which come from the actors in the movie (almost all of them are children).Natural acting and a delectable plot mark the movie.It is sometimes quite incredible to note how such a beautiful movie comes out of a painfully simple plot, a plot which reminds us of short stories from our primary school days.No scope for melodrama or extravagance Mr. Panahi quite ably illustrates that big budgets , exquisite locations and highly paid actors are not needed to make Exceptional movies. Movie which will stay with you for ever. Simple is Beautiful.

I've read many other user's comments about this movie and most of them talk about the beautiful story of a Iranian little girl who is very worried for she has lost the money her mother gave to her. Well, the little girl's very cute, indeed, but the story, from my point of view, is far from being that beautiful.First off, the trouble she gets involved is all her fault. She just doesn't follow her mother's advices/orders like passing by a "dangerous" place or talking with strangers. Second, all she can do is cry and wait for others to solve the problem she caused by herself. Third, she's not capable of saying at least a small "Thank you" when everything becomes fine for her. Is this beautiful? I don't think so.Alright, you can say that she's so young and innocence is all she's got, so let's give her a little chance here. Now, what can you tell me about her brother? It's very obvious that he's a way more clever and, let's say it this way, more experienced than the little girl. He's always concerned about her little sister's well-being and that's great, but this is something that most of the brothers around the world do, so there's no need to say that his actions are "beautiful". And on the other hand, the way he treats the Afghani kid is not kind at all. First, by rudely taking his stick and then (here I go again), by not saying a little "Thank you" to him even when the Afghani kid bought with his own money the chewing gum and then let the Iranian ones use his stick, just to help the little girl... All the Afghani kid gets is loneliness when the new year comes... is this beautiful?I clearly understand that the movie is a big metaphor about trying to help each other and being able to show gratitude. And I stick myself to this meaning for the movie didn't leave me a "beautiful" feeling for one way or another, the grown-ups tried to help the little girl in their very own way, so there's not such an adult indifference here. But when another kid really helps them out, all he gets is the indifference that most of the viewers thought the sister and brother were suffering.Anyway, and now talking about the movie in a general way, I think that the Director could save at least 20 minutes of film by avoiding some long and useless scenes. For example, the one where the kid brings soap instead of shampoo; all the repetitive dialogues the little girls has as well as the long and boring one when the old man explains to his friends why he was arguing with a client. This extra-material makes the movie a little bit slow and, sometimes, boring. That's why I give this 7 out of ten stars.