Author: mctheimer from Bellevue, Washington, USA


It's been several years since I saw this, but it sticks in my mind like I saw it recently. This short does one of the best jobs I've ever seen of making a point in minimal screen time.

I won't go into the plot of the moral; part of the joy of this film is figuring it out. When I saw it, you could watch the audience members individually recognize what was happening over the time of the film. It's under 10 minutes long (I believe), and it would be a shame to spoil it for someone.

The film is not something children would enjoy. While there's nothing objectionable about the film, it's not typical colorful, pretty animation. One thing that struck me is that the animation style is very Eastern European, while the plot is rather Asian (group dynamics).

The bottom line is that this is well worth seeing -- and it won't even take that much time out of your schedule!

Balance is a German animated film, released in 1989. It was directed and produced by twin brothers Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein.

The film depicts five individuals living on a small platform floating in space. Whenever one of them moves, the others must do so as well to ensure that the platform does not tip over. The group works cooperatively to maintain a "balance" until one individual pulls a box onto the platform. Since all are curious as to what the box is, the individuals try to inspect the box and their actions disrupt the balance of the platform. All but one of the individuals falls off the edges of the platform. In the end, the lone individual must maintain a balance with the box, which is well out of reach.

Balance won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short of 1989.

Trivia

* The Academy Award for Balance was only the second time that twins shared an Oscar. The first time that had happened was when Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein were among the winners for Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay for Casablanca.

* The film was originally commissioned by the band Alphaville for inclusion in their 1990 video compilation Songlines.

* The five Balance characters' numbers are 23, 35, 51, 75, and 77. The final remaining character is 23, the only prime number of the group. His end conflict is with number 75 -- the only character to have a number with non-prime factors.

* The climactic "balancing platform" sequence from National Treasure: Book of Secrets was directly inspired by "Balance", which is mentioned in its credits.