IMDb RATING
7.6/10
8.2K
YOUR RATING
Several people try to help a little girl to find the money her mom gave her to buy a goldfish with.Several people try to help a little girl to find the money her mom gave her to buy a goldfish with.Several people try to help a little girl to find the money her mom gave her to buy a goldfish with.
- Awards
- 5 wins & 3 nominations
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film unfolds in real time.
- Quotes
Ali: You're whining again!
Razieh: Mom refuses to give me money for the goldfish.
Ali: Don't you like ours?
Razieh: You call these goldfish, you haven't seen the others. It's as though they're dancing when they move their fins. And they've got so many fins.
Ali: How much?
Razieh: The shopkeeper said 100 tomans.
Ali: 100 tomans! You want to pay 100 tomans for a goldfish. You can watch two films with that money. You're nuts.
- ConnectionsFeatured in A Story of Children and Film (2013)
Featured review
Excellent
Abbas Kiarostami wrote this film, which is very much like his 1987 masterpiece, Where Is the Friend's Home? That film had a young boy trying to give back some other boy's homework that he accidentally took home. This one has a little girl having all kinds of problems trying to buy a goldfish on New Year's Eve. Each of these children have to navigate their way through a world of adults in a culture where the young are to be seen, but not heard. The earlier film is quite a bit better than The White Balloon, but this is a wonderful film in its own right. It has a wonderful set piece where a street performer thinks that the girl is donating the money she has for her goldfish to a snake charmer. She has to work up the courage to speak up for herself, and then to take the money when it has been wrapped around a snake. My only real problem with the film was the lead performance, by Aida Mohammadkhani. She has really nice facial expressions, but her voice and line delivery are monotonous; truth be told, she gets kind of obnoxious after a while. Mohsen Kalifi, who plays her older brother, is wonderful, on the other hand. I really liked the way the sibling relationship was developed. Kiarostami, genius that he is, adds some small details that give the film a much deeper resonance than one might find at first glance (I'd almost call this a trademark of his). The sequence with the titular balloon, along with the haunting final shot, is the kind of thing that could make this film last forever inside of me.
helpful•165
- zetes
- May 30, 2003
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- El globo blanco
- Filming locations
- Kashan, Iran(location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $150,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $924,940
- Gross worldwide
- $924,940
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