Balomania overview – these magnificent Brazilians and their flying balloons

An intriguing movie set in Brazil, first proven final 12 months on the CPH:DOX documentary pageant in Copenhagen, through which expatriate Danish film-maker Sissel Morell Dargis takes a take a look at a singular grassroots cultural phenomenon: the baloeiros, the ballooners. These are teams of younger males, as secretive and dependable to one another as Freemasons, who (illegally) construct and launch big embellished balloons in cities, from the place they’ll journey tons of of miles. Why? As sort of graffiti, or a neighborhood self-expression, or situationist artform, or only a subversive gesture of pure joie de vivre that doesn’t want or admit of any rationalization.

The baloeiros are harassed by the police, on the ostensible grounds that they’re a part of gang tradition, and the authorities encourage native folks to tell on these they believe of constructing and transporting a balloon. However baloeiros are cheerfully dedicated to their very own sort of public-access artistry. The balloons present colossal photos of Sly Stallone and Luciano Pavarotti – aspirational function fashions and popular culture icons. As Dargis says: “A flying balloon belongs to everybody, even the police.”

Maybe the authorities’ angle is extra irrational and dysfunctional than they’ll admit; when the police can’t catch the criminals, they criminalise the folks they’ll catch. The Brazilian state might be simply collectively and spitefully infuriated by a communal exercise which exists exterior their management and which consumes their consideration whereas critical criminals proceed to ply their commerce. The ballooners themselves have one thing of the ethos of surfers and skate boarders – and even the flâneurs of belle époque Paris. It’s a lifestyle, a cultivation of pure pleasure.