‘Balomania’: CPH:DOX Review

Dir: Sissel Morell Dargis. Denmark/Spain. 2024. 93 mins.

Hidden deep in the favelas of Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities lie communities of underground hot air balloon builders and hunters – committed ‘crews’ of men (and it’s invariably men) united by their passion for these huge, highly decorative and transient works of art. The ‘baloeiros’ are forced to pursue their hobby covertly – the police and the press brand them ‘mafia’ or ‘cartels’, an extreme choice of wording that is matched by the forceful approach of law enforcement, which treats them little differently to the gangs that run Brazil’s deadly drug trade. 

The ultimate in high-stakes outsider art

The baloeiro world is a closed world. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Sissel Morell Dargis, a young female Danish graffiti artist turned documentary filmmaker, managed to gain access and sufficient trust to create this thrilling account of the ultimate in high-stakes outsider art. Dargis, who narrates the film in Portuguese, having moved to Brazil in her late teens. Her involvement in the graffiti scene meant sher had already been arrested when she first became aware of the illegal balloons, and she grew fascinated with this outlaw art movement. But gaining access was a painstaking and gradual process; one that is incorporated into the film (which shot, on and off, for over a decade).

Dargis remains behind the camera, but she – almost as much as the baloeiros that she follows – is also a character in the film, which is driven by her compulsion to understand the world and to witness the launch of a ‘giant’ (the biggest balloons can be 70 metres tall, and tow flags the size of a football pitch). There is an obsessive quality that she shares with the baloeiros; they recognise her as one of their own (Dargis is also a video game designer who has created a game, titled Cai Cai Balão, that is set in the baloeiro’s world). The film is a little rough around the edges at times but since Dargis was, by necessity, a one-woman filming operation, the lack of coverage and occasionally frenetic camerawork is understandable. It’s a ballsy, hip piece of filmmaking, and any picture that immerses the audience this fully in an unknown world should be of considerable interest to documentary specialist distributors going forward.

The baloeiros, we learn, pursue a tradition that started as a Catholic ritual several centuries before, then mushroomed into competitive neighbourhood crews akin to the duelling samba schools of carnival. But in 1998, the balloons were ruled illegal due to safety concerns. They persist, nonetheless, divided into the crews that create the balloons, toiling in secret for years at a time; and the crews that chase them, crossing state lines and evading the pursuing cops in order to be the first to claim a fallen balloon. Dargis shadows both, each adventure drawing her closer to the inner circle of the baloeiro community.

There’s a ritual attached to it all, a code – we see one balloon hunter washing his car in anticipation of the evening’s chase; another insists on changing his clothes, explaining that “this is not the right dress code to see a balloon”. But there is also a mounting unease and paranoia in the balloon world, with media and police campaigns encouraging neighbours to snitch on suspected baloeiros. There’s even the hint of betrayal among baloeiros, the suspicion that members of crews might tip off the police about the activities of rivals. And with possible prison terms of five to eight years, that’s no small thing.

Balomania is most effective as a window into a closed world. But there’s another aspect that Dargis wrestles with, the broader question of whether something so dangerous and so short-lived is actually ‘art’. She explores the egalitarian aspects of the balloons – as long as they are aloft they belong to everybody, much like graffiti,  in a place where not everybody has access to more traditional forms of art. And yet the media strikes fear into the hearts of the Brazilian people.

Balloon elder statesman Sergio explains that the aim is “to paint the sky without staining the earth,” cautioning that safety should be a priority for baloeiros. But there is something exhilarating about the drama and uncertainty of each covert launch. Perhaps a passing child sums it up most effectively: “They are very beautiful. And everything that’s beautiful is art.”