Short of the Week

Play
Drama Josh and Benny Safdie

The Black Balloon

The black balloon, an alien in a crowded land, searches for some semblance of companionship after losing all of its friends.

Play
Drama Josh and Benny Safdie

The Black Balloon

The black balloon, an alien in a crowded land, searches for some semblance of companionship after losing all of its friends.

The Black Balloon

Drama about in Live-Action
Directed By Josh and Benny Safdie
Produced By Red Bucket Films
Made In USA

Running at 20 minutes, Josh and Benny Safdie’s short film The Black Balloon is an investment to watch. But this Sundance Jury Prize winner is an ingenious slice of imaginative narrative that will make you rethink how stories can be told onscreen. 

When a man finds himself with 40 little kids under his care in New York City, he accidentally loses a bouquet of 100 balloons into the sky. A single black balloon manages to evade its doom and with a mind of its own makes its way back into the city in search of a friend.  

The film was originally inspired by the Academy Award winning 1956 short film The Red Balloon written and directed by French filmmaker, Albert Lamorisse. The Black Balloon pays homage to this film, which is one of the most famously decorated short films ever. It had been one of the first movies the Safdie brothers had ever been shown and they therefore had a deep connection with it. Lamorisse’s fantasy film follows a little boy who has found a red balloon with a mind of its own and takes him through the streets of Paris. Similarly, the Safdie brothers chose New York City as the heart of their fiction. Both The Red Balloon and The Black Balloon portray the human condition, more poignantly, loneliness, shown through all that the balloon may encounter. 

The Safdie brothers put a very significant spin on their own take of the fantastical balloon story. Their film follows a balloon on its human-like journey through the streets of New York City with a retro-atmospheric edge thanks to music by Gong. The balloon stumbles upon various damaged individuals who all seem to be searching for the same thing ‘he’ is: companionship. The Black Balloon illustrates the need to be with others and the Safdie brothers cleverly make you feel empathy for the balloon and all of the people it encounters. 
 
Notably, the film’s cinematography is the lifeblood of the balloon’s person-like qualities. The way the shots are composed make it seem like you are watching a person walk through the crowded sidewalks, the office parks, and alleys. The balloon constantly floats at eye level with all who come upon it. They speak to the balloon, conspire with it, tell it their problems and interact with it as if it weren’t out of the ordinary for a blown up rubber thing to be following them around. The balloon is given even more personality because each person projects their feelings onto it and the perspective is compelling. 
 
Much like Lamorisse’s film, the story playfully combines fantasy with the realism of documentary. Each encounter the balloon has with an individual is like watching various snapshots of life unfold. The film feels as if it’s a new urban folktale – the balloon a vessel to share the stories. 
 
Josh and Benny Safdie have since released their acclaimed feature film, Heaven Knows What, which premiered at the New York Film Festival.