FROM one film that was surprisingly not a true story to one that incredibly is.
‘Balloon’ from director Michael Bully Herbig is a subtitled German thriller depicting the incredible story of two families attempting to defect from East to West Germany in a hot air balloon.
It’s 1979 – meet the Strelzyks and Wetzels. They’ve spent the best part of two years building their own balloon in the cellars and workshops of their homes in Thuringia, a state in the German Democratic Republic. Their plan is simple, albeit fanciful. Inspired by a magazine article and desperate to be free of the regime – rather than risk landmines, barbed-wire or booby traps at the border (which claimed the lives of more than 800 people), they would instead wait for a rare northerly wind and float across the border before officials can shoot them down.
This would take over 1,000 sqm of tent fabric (try buying that all in one go without raising suspicion) and some balls of pure titanium.
Within the first ten minutes you see just how difficult their plan is… as it fails miserably. Such is the desperation to be free of the GDR we see the families dust themselves off and have another go, except this time the authorities are onto the plan and time is running out.
Fans of Deutschland ’86 will be au fait with the style – a grey, washed out palette depicting prefab houses, Trabants and polyester trousers – queues of people bemoaning the lack of apricots for sale that week – Stasi smoking cigarettes on every corner – that kind of thing. But for all the political clouds hanging over the story, it wisely narrows it down to two things – a very tense cat and mouse game – and a tale of families willing to do anything to stay together and improve their kids’ lives.
It really is an incredible story. I did a double-take when the end credits shows photos of the real-life subjects and then went down a real Wikipedia rabbit-hole – Günter, one of the lead characters even has instructions on how to make the balloon on his website!
German critics are divided with some saying it is too near the knuckle in times of political turmoil regarding reunification and immigration – but to this critic (admittedly ignorant about such things), I found it to be incredible tense and watchable.
Might not be at the local mutliplex, so go searching!
