Balance (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Balance
Directed by	Christoph Lauenstein Wolfgang Lauenstein
Distributed by	Material-Verlag
Running time	7 minutes
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

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 check out 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, that is well out of reach.

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

[edit] 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. The end conflict is with number 75, the only member to have non-prime divisible components.

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