There is an astonishing reminder early on in director John Dower’s spirited documentary, “The Balloonists,” a crowd-pleaser for Jules Verne fans and adventure lovers alike. There are only 66 short years between 1903, when the Wright Brothers flew the world’s first airplane, and 1969, when mankind landed on the moon. Considering the lightning speed of technological advancements in the skies, one would think there wasn’t another triumph left to pursue on the aviation front, at least on this side of the atmosphere. That realization certainly crossed the mind of Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard when he was an impassioned kid, the kind (in his words) who would only be moved by a rocket going to the moon, and not by a football game.
Except, there was still one feat not yet achieved by anyone: circling the entire globe in an uninterrupted hot air balloon journey, a record-breaking quest that Piccard and his counterpart Brian Jones successfully completed in 1999. But it took a while for Picard to get there. For starters, his adorably nerdy interests at a young age didn’t quite make him the most popular student at his school, where even the teachers picked on him for his peculiarities. And what exactly is the next step when one decides to become an explorer, Piccard wondered? But the headstrong adventurer’s life changed after he discovered the world of hot air balloons and made them his life’s passion.
In some way, it was inevitable for him to take such an extraordinary route. After all, he came from a long line of inventors and explorers: His grandfather, Auguste, was the first person to enter the stratosphere in a hot air balloon in 1931. An oceanographer and engineer, his father Jacques became the first scientist (along with his colleague Lt. Don Walsh) to reach the floor of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench in 1960, inside a state-of-the-art submarine that he built.
That family history was both the right fuel for Piccard and something to live up to, a fact that filmmaker Dower lovingly interprets through a stunning wealth of archival footage and first-person interviews within his film’s compact running time. Through it all, he portrays Piccard’s personality in the fullest sense possible, giving us the story of a driven human being who stubbornly defended his vision for the trip (sometimes, too stubbornly) and never lost his sense of wonder.
The mission’s various twists and turns eventually united Piccard with British flight instructor Jones, who temporarily swapped his serene married life in England with the voyage, adopting Piccard’s obsession as his own. Running in parallel to the storylines of Piccard and Jones is the global race of the time where many prominent figures, from accomplished aviators to billionaire Richard Branson, were trying to become the first around-the-globe balloonists. This context and backdrop adorns the film with considerable energy, various colorful personalities and smartly edited archival news footage that deepens our understanding of the perilous stakes.
But what’s ultimately the most impressive (and deserving of the big screen) is Piccard and Jones’ actual journey. Here, if the phrase “hot air balloon” conjures up the image of a colorful inflatable mass and a quaint basket in your mind, you might want to trade that for something that looks more like a claustrophobic spacecraft. That’s the environment in which Piccard and Jones lived for nearly three weeks, gliding across oceans and deserts, often in treacherous weather conditions. What they see outside of their window — sometimes, so deeply frozen that they had to scrape off the ice using creative methods — is simply breathtaking, ranging from deep blue seas to expansive sand dunes. Every now and then, an empty fuel tank gets released from the balloon with considerable visual drama. Other times, the duo wonders whether they have enough fuel to complete the expedition across the Atlantic stretch.
In its final chapter, “The Balloonists” plays like an “Apollo 13”-adjacent thriller, especially when the ground crew loses connection with Piccard and Jones. And even though we know the successful outcome of their journey, Dower’s filmmaking panache keeps us invested in the mystery and danger of men going toe-to-toe with nature. On those grounds alone, “The Balloonists” is a deeply satisfying experience. Outside of that, it has the disposition of a vintage buddy movie and an underdog tale, one that celebrates human determination and the notion of advancement through science.