THE BREADWINNER. Sincere and Moving Cinema

The great Cartoon Saloon (already highly regarded, yet still insufficiently well known), responsible for The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, returns with its latest animated feature. This time, however, the studio reaches for a more realistic visual style and a politically engaged subject. The Breadwinner is a firmly grounded story that does not shy away from images of physical suffering.

Even more painful, however, is the suffering felt on a mental level. Helplessness, despair, and a sense of exclusion are the emotional tones most frequently struck by director Nora Twomey. The Breadwinner is demanding cinema and an important voice addressing an important issue.

Kabul, Afghanistan. Military aircraft repeatedly cut across the sky; buildings that have miraculously survived stand wall to wall with depressing heaps of rubble. Armored vehicles belonging to the Taliban patrol the roads, while among the pedestrians we constantly notice civilians maimed by the war. One of them is the good-natured Nurullah, who has lost his right leg. Sitting with him at a market stall is his teenage daughter, Parvana. Spread out on a blanket, they are selling the last valuable family keepsakes. Every penny and every bite of bread is worth its weight in gold—especially since three more people are waiting to be fed at home.

The filmmakers skillfully sketch the strong bond between Parvana and her father. He is an authority figure, a teacher, and a guardian—someone by whose side, in such harsh times, one can feel at least a little safer. This world collapses, however, when Nurullah is unlawfully arrested and sentenced to an unknown term in prison. The lives of his two daughters, wife, and young son hang by a thread. At the time, the extremist, fanatical laws of the Taliban forbade women from any participation in social life. Only men were allowed to go to the shop and be treated as customers. Hidden beneath burqas, women stayed at home, cooking meals and caring for children.

Without Nurullah, Parvana’s family situation becomes truly tragic. Salvation can come only through the ultimate sacrifice. The heroine cuts her hair, dresses in clothes left behind by her deceased brother, and leaves the house-shelter (incidentally, this scene feels as though it were lifted straight out of Disney’s Mulan). Parvana’s first goal is to bring food to her family; her second is to try to free her father from prison.

The plot develops on two levels, much like in Song of the Sea: the literal and the symbolic. In Cartoon Saloon’s latest production, the latter is realized through the story of Sulayman. Parvana’s peer sets out on a journey to recover grain stolen by the emissaries of the mythical Elephant King. Unfortunately, this side story does not add much to the main narrative. While it certainly enriches the film visually in an interesting way, it does not open up new interpretive paths, functioning instead as an almost direct translation of Parvana’s real-life experiences.

Sulayman’s story was meant to play a role similar to the mystical aura of The Secret of Kells or the fairy-tale quality of Song of the Sea. In those earlier animations, however, fantastical events added further layers of meaning. This time, such additional meanings are difficult to discern.The Breadwinner is decidedly more straightforward and easier to read. It is sincere and moving cinema, but cinema made with a thesis—an unquestionably just one, yet all too clearly felt. It is a film that reminds us of the necessity of gender equality and of the victims of war. It warns against religious fanaticism and focuses attention on defenseless individuals placed in the face of vast imperial conflicts.

I can applaud every theme the film raises, yet I miss the finesse and delicacy so typical of Cartoon Saloon in the way they are expressed. The Breadwinner is cinema written in capital letters—certainly to the benefit of ideological clarity, but at the cost of what I value most in the work of this outstanding Irish studio: sensitivity in portraying its characters and the refinement of unobvious symbolism. The Breadwinner remains an above-average film, but one lacking the spark of a truly great work.