Director – John Dower – 2025 – UK, Austria, US – Cert. PG – 86m
****
The story of balloonist Bertrand Piccard’s three attempts to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 22nd
Bertrand Piccard’s house, as his astonished interviewer notes, is a museum, a personal collection of memorabilia from the history of aviation. It grew in a mere 66 years from the Wright Brothers’ pioneering efforts to the Apollo 11 moon landing. His family was in Florida at the time of the Apollo 7-12 launches which he witnessed. Five days before the moon landing, he vowed to become an explorer himself, but then when Armstrong walked on the moon Piccard felt everything had been done. He got depressed.
And then he saw a balloon and discovered that no-one had ever flown round the world in one.
In 1997, His first attempt, the Breitling Orbiter, ditched in the Mediterranean after six hours. Many others tried, including Richard Branson, who knew how to do publicity: in Morocco, Branson’s balloon blew away before it could be launched.
Enter British engineer Andy Elson. But the film switches back to Piccard, whose grandfather was a pioneering balloonist and whose father designed submarines and made a record-breaking dive to the Mariana Trench. Piccard and Elson’s next attempt, the Breitling Orbiter 2 in 1998, saw the wires holding the capsule to the balloon break as it was being loaded onto the launch pad. Their flight developed a leak, which Andy had to climb down the outside of the capsule to fix with the sole Allen key on board, which activity is captured in terrifying footage.
Piccard decides not to fly with Elson again, but Elson gets sponsorship and starts his own project. They are now rivals. The bias of the film towards Piccard rather than Elson suggests this is going to be Piccard’s story. Next Partner up: Tony Brown, balloonist and Concorde flight engineer.
The competitive nature of breaking a record before anyone else pulls it off seems to bring out the worst in Piccard, who talks about his worst Christmas ever when Branson attempted another round the world flight and his own elation when Branson’s balloon ditched in Hawaii. And then, a week before his next scheduled flight, Bertrand and Tony fell out, leaving technician Brian Jones to fill the co-pilot position. Before saying yes, Brian got the permission of his wife Jo, a former air hostess.
In 1999, their trusted weather expert Luc Trullemans gives them an unexpected six-hour window on the morning of March 1st of perfect launch weather for the Breitling Orbiter 3 after what has been a foul year for weather in Switzerland has caused Piccard’s third balloon flight to be cancelled. The rival flight by Elson’s team was already two weeks ahead of them.
In one of the most moving moments in the film, Jones remembers saying goodbye to his wife, wondering if they’ll ever see each other again. He is clearly overcome by the memory of the parting, which he agrees resonates to this day, and the camera linger rather than cutting away to reveal the true depth of his emotion.
Jo remembers heading straight for Geneva after launch where she would help manning the operating centre. She wanted to know what was happening with Brian as soon as it happened.
Yemen posed a problem because it threatened to shoot down any aircraft entering its airspace, but weatherman Luc found Bertrand and Brian a last minute jet stream to take them North of that country. Then the news came that Elson’s team had ditched in the Sea of Japan. Elson responds to a loaded question at a press conference, “we didn’t fail – we just found another way that didn’t work.”
Further challenges await the Breitling Orbiter 3. They must avoid storms over the vast Ocean of the Pacific, because the updrafts and downdrafts of such events could be very bad for balloons. On top of this, they endure a terrifying, two-day comms blackout. They must sort out a problem with their oxygen supply when their system’s filters start failing, causing them to breathe Carbon Dioxide. And then, if they manage to successfully circumnavigate the globe, there’s the little problem of landing.
Exhilarating in some places and terrifying in others, this is a remarkable documentary on the subject of human achievement. It makes for a fascinating comparison with Deep Water (Louise Osmond, Jerry Rothwell, 2006) about the disastrous 1968 Round the World Yacht Race.
What ultimately makes the current movie so compelling, though, are the two men at its centre. Brian Jones is an ordinary man who in the end, whatever his achievement, will simply be glad to get back to Terra Firma and his wife. Bertrand Piccard, on the other hand, feels the weight of his father and grandfather’s exploratory achievements, and will not be at ease with himself unless he can pull off something comparable. It’s perhaps telling that Brian’s wife Jo plays a huge part in all this, while Bertrand’s father and grandfather also play a role while his wife stays in the background looking after the kids, barely getting a look in.
The Balloonists is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 22nd.
Trailer: