What would you make of a condom? Like, pretend you had never seen one before and never had a proper sex-ed lesson of any kind (fill in your own Abstinence Only education joke here: ___________). How would you treat a condom? Two rural Tibetan boys, the ungrateful products of condom avoidance, blow it up and use it as a Balloon. Well, gee, that’s fun, right? In fact, the opening minute of Balloon is filmed literally through a condom lens. In retrospect … not as fun.
The story isn’t about the kids, but about China’s ugly reproductive prohibition laws. It’s the 1980’s and goatherder Dargye (Jinpa) is gonna have to pay a hefty fine if he can’t keep it in his pants. And lemme tell ya, it doesn’t help if the boys keep using the rare condoms available as toys, or trade bait. “I hear that kid next door [read: miles away] will swap a Balloon for a whistle.” Well, that brings up an intriguing query – which is better protection against pregnancy, a condom or two boys with a whistle?
Not Beijing or Shanghai, the scene is all farmland. The people are poor goat herders who see balloons, both the toy kind and the prophylactic kind, as an extravagance. The two boys like to run naked in the fields playing “chase the mole.” The wife, Drolkar (Sonam Wangmo) is too embarrassed to visit a man doctor and has to get her condoms one-at-a-time from the clinic. She seems to know less about reproduction than pre-pubescent Alabaman whose parents have a subscription to Cinemax. Her sister had a bad breakup and went to a convent. Did these things still happen in 1980? They did. Just not in big cities.
In many other societies, the kids making the family condom into a toy has no impact whatsoever. Here it means Drolkar gets pregnant and these poor farmers suddenly have some ugly decisions ahead. I’m actually more stunned by the fact that a woman can get pregnant in a single-room hut where seven people live than in any other revelation the film had to offer, but no amount of my incredulous is going to alleviate China’s reproductive legalities.
I found myself caring about about the Balloon-ites, trying to put myself in their thatched shoes and wondering what I’d have done, so that part of the film works. What doesn’t really work is that the film draaaaags, and it also seems to make little to no statement about the Draconian law other than it exists. This could have been a powerful statement along the lines of “LOOK AT WHAT CHINA HAS DONE TO TIBET,” but instead it trailed off into “such is life, whatchagonnado?” That didn’t do it for me.
In a world that is not yet defiled
Innocence makes all items mild
When not used to menstruate
Tampons make kitten bait
Everything is a toy to a child
Not Rated, 102 Minutes
Director: Pema Tseden
Writer: Pema Tseden
Genre: Culture CLASH!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Tibetan goat herders?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Believers in the “One Child Only” policy
