Man, it’s strange how art can just completely remove you from all your perceived problems just for a moment, and help you reflect on the positive things you have in your life. The Breadwinner held my attention and took my breath away. I was Parvana watching this. I felt her.
The Breadwinner is one of those films that you really only need to see one time, and it sticks with you. I wept for 10 minutes following the closing credits.
The sophistication of animation is vast, and knows no creative limits. This film is brilliantly animated because everything has intention. I love that the animators cared about the minutiae. From the bags under the characters’ eyes, to the dust circulating at the market, everything is intentional.
The plot of the film intertwines two different animation styles for two interconnected stories in a full-circle approach. The animation style of Saluyman story’s signaled a throwback to the cut-out animated film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed,” a German film (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) released in 1926, which was a technical marvel for the animation genre of filmmaking at the time. The landscapes were superb. The documentary film “A Thousand Girls Like Me,” which I reviewed last year, is also set in Afghanistan, and it looks identical to the setting in this film. The homes, the travelers, the bazaar, the tone, the palette—it’s absolutely beautiful and rich. The amber and beiges of the building and streets, with the coldest blues in the night, it all pops! But when you see the red garment on the blanket at the bazaar that Parvana and her father are attempting to sell, or the green in her eyes against her hijab and other surroundings, or even the crisp red of Razaq’s apple, your senses heighten.
Also, I don’t know if this was deliberate or not, but I wondered if Parvana’s likeness was modeled after Sharbat Gula, the young girl in the iconic “Afghan Girl” photograph that was featured on the 1985 cover of National Geographic. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the previews for this film a few years ago.
One of my favorite scenes in the film was when Parvana, disguided as a young boy, helps Razaq read a letter at the same blanket where he met her at with her father. Throughout the sequence, the frame only shows a profile of Parvana reading aloud while Razaq peels an apple. As she translates the letter, Razaq become still. And silent. He stops peeling. The audience cannot see his face, only his hands. But we can sense the conflict. The moment is apparent, and the grief is present. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Awesome cinematography.
The story is multi-tasking. It’s multi-faceted. It’s about fear, pain, loss, but it’s also about courage, compassion, love, and acceptance.
🌕 Fear…in the moment when the Taliban enters Parvana’s home and takes the father away to prison. Or when Idrees, after chasing the Parvana and her friend, realizes there’s no more play time, no more terrorizing innocent people–he has to go to war.
🌕 Pain… after Parvana’s mother is beaten for not being accompanied by a male when she attempts to travel to the prison where her husband is locked away (for no reason). He was the only male of age in the household.
🌕 Loss… after Parvana tries to explain what happened to her brother, Saluyman, to her closest friend. Or, when she dedicates the story she uses it to calm her younger brother to Saluyman. Or, when her mother mentions how much she’s looks like her deceased older brother following her transformation to help secure essentials from the market for her family. The audience senses the grief in those little silences between the characters.
🌕 It’s also about courage. Parvana’s visceral strength to alter her appearance, and hide in plain sight in order to feed her vulnerable family. The breadwinner in more ways than one.
🌕 Acceptance…when Parvana reveals herself to Razaj, and he still helps her.
🌕 Compassion… when Razaq risks his life to help Parvana see her father again.
…and hala—the halo around the moon—beautifully done. A powerful conclusion.