The Breadwinner Review

 

        The month is almost ending with looking at animation. Specifically, this brief inspection on foreign film has been something to behold. To me, it is a conscientious decision to not look at anime films. I think that the overall exposure is great for starters, but I feel that the style outshines other talented foreign films from Europe and elsewhere. The Breadwinner wraps up my look of foreign animated films. Although, it will not be the last.

1. Parvana

        I might as well have a disclaimer since this film is based on a novel by Deborah Ellis. It seems that every great film is based on a book or some written document. Anyways, the film takes place in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule. A young girl Parvana is with her father who is a hawker at the market attempting to sell their items. 

        At their home, a soldier of the Taliban, Idrees and his group arrest the father Nurullah on charges that he was insulting the young soldier. Making the situation worse, no women could be walking alone in the streets. Their oldest son Sulayman had died years ago. Parvana decides to go and find food. She has trouble since no one will sell her anything. She decides to cut her hair and pass as a boy.

        Later, she finds another boy who in turn is a girl with short hair as they do odd jobs to raise money to get Parvana’s father out of prison. This is probably the most interesting aspect about the film. The idea of passing as someone else. I have seen it before in another animated film like Disney's Mulan. It is an important detail to note since Parvana tries to get her father out. Usually it’s a literary plot device, but in the context of how its used in this movie it manages to work. Especially when she finds someone else who I literally did not see anticipate such a reveal since I thought the child was a boy. 

        I was not expecting the level of off-screen violence to occur as well. Especially when both Parvana and her mother are walking to the prison, they are stopped. The Taliban soldier beats her up and threatens to arrest her if she was walking without a man. This is the part that is messed up for the people who are not aware of the backward customs of the Taliban. Since they misinterpret the religious teachings and treat women as nothing more but second class. 

2. Another Story

        Not only are you getting Parvana’s story, but you also get another story. This one is told by Parvana to calm down her baby brother Zaki. Her story involves a boy who must rescue his villages seeds for the crops from creatures ruled by an elephant king. As you hear and watch the story being told, the details are added on the spot. 

        It’s not just Parvana who tells the story, also her mother continues the tale when her young daughter falls asleep. As well as the girl's friend Shauzia who interjects to make it more exciting. The whole story isn’t just something that the main character tells to really come to grips with what’s going on. It’s actually contributing about the whole film and what it is really about.

        This idea of persistence is the main theme in the entire film. Because Parvana is trying to raise enough money to bribe a prison guard to let her father out. And in the story that she tells, the boy is attempting to get the food for his village amid terrifying odds. It is the drama that works and how much Parvana is willing to sacrifice to provide for her family.  More so that an invasion amplifies the situation for the girl to get to the prison, before her dad is executed. 

3. Overall

        I left so much out because, I really want you guys to watch it. This is a great animated feature that should’ve won the Academy Award for  best animated film. It lost to Disney and Pixar’s Coco. I feel to better remedy any bias is to establish a best international animated feature award so that any foreign can have a chance to win and to have more audiences be exposed to the different styles in animation elsewhere. The Breadwinner is the easily on the top of my favorite animated films. 

        The Breadwinner gets a four out of five.