When we are sad that "life is not only the present and the poetry and the distance", the little boy Odiš in the film should not be said to be the little girl Parwana who is still living and dying for her family. She and her friends had also dreamed of the distance, they sat on the wreckage of a tank and watched the desert sunset, and they met on the distant beach twenty years later. Movies don't give us answers, and reality doesn't give us answers.
"The Breadwinner" tells the story of 2001 under the totalitarian control of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where women were not allowed to show their faces outside, the poor Parwana family already lived a poor life, after her father was imprisoned, the family pillar collapsed, and the 11-year-old girl Parwana cut off her long hair, put on the boy's clothes to live outside, while shouldering the responsibility of a breadwinner, while trying to save her father.
The beginning of the story is inevitably reminiscent of another animation masterpiece, "I Grew Up in Iran", in which women are forced to wear veils, tens of thousands of people are thrown into prison, and people live in the depths of the water. The dilemma of "The Breadwinner" is even worse, women even have to be punished for going out on the street, teaching children to read is also illegal, and the family can only rely on sellers to survive, poor enough to drink water and hunger. But that's not the worst, the brother was killed, the lame father was wrongfully imprisoned, the frail mother was injured, and the family had to rely on the 11-year-old Parwana woman dressed as a man to survive.
It sounds like a Mulan story under the taliban's clutches. Yes, who says it isn't. Parwana gave herself the boy's name Otis, which means fire. This fire risked her life again and again to go to the prison to save her father, went to the brick kiln to carry bricks to do hard work and was hunted down and killed by acquaintances, in that dangerous situation full of mines, tigers and wolves looking around, she was not a female general who charged and dared to be brave. She has the intelligence and boldness of Marga in "I Grew Up in Iran", and she even has the responsibility and fearlessness that Marga does not have, unfortunately, she does not have the good life that Marga can go away from home.
The story ends in an open-ended story, with the mother freed from the control of relatives and reunited with her sister, who fled on her brother's back, and Parwana rescuing her dying father from prison, but we still dare not imagine the future of the Parwana family. The hint of the film is actually clear enough, it is the outbreak of the Afghan war at night, can they cross the minefield and the flames of war and return to their nest alive? I hope so.
Years of war have reduced Afghanistan to one of the world's poorest regions, with more than 30 million people at one point having 6 million refugees. Today, Afghanistan remains the most unstable region in the world. In 2017, there were 2,050 attacks in Afghanistan, with 68 people killed or wounded every day. The latest United Nations data show that in the first half of 2018, the number of new civilian deaths in Afghanistan was 1692, the highest since 2001, and militant attacks and suicide bombings were the main causes of death. Although it is not explicitly stated in the film, we can infer from Parwana's words that the death of her brother is related to suicide bombings.
Veteran animation fans can easily smell the atmosphere of "Kyle's Secret" from the poster of "The Breadwinner", yes, "The Breadwinner" and "Kyle's Secret" are in the same vein, both nora Tomei works, both two-line plot and double-line drawing style, and once again nominated for the Oscar. The difference is that the previous film was co-directed with Tom Moore, this time it was independently directed by Nora Tomei, and Tom Moore only served as a producer. Last year, Nora Tomei also collaborated with Tom Moore on another Oscar-nominated animation, Song of the Sea, and we can also find each other's origins in the strands of hair on the right side of the two heroines' faces.
The movie experience of "The Breadwinner" is heavy, and there is no lack of warmth in some places. Poor people have the pleasure of poor people, such as the little brother eating raisins, people in distress also have the beauty of difficulties, such as in the ruins of war to think of distant beaches, where girls are free, can earn money from tourists to support their families. Despite the desperate circumstances, the director plants the seeds of hope in the film, the father of the teacher secretly teaches the children knowledge and writing, and among the Taliban soldiers, there are also uncles like the uncle who found Parwana to read the letter.
War is like a beast, devouring everything, including civilization and love, and only when war stops completely on a world scale and all nations and mankind cross the realm of life and death, can we have more poetry and distant places. Warlike warcraft, watching and helping those areas and people in dire straits, is also one of our poetry and faraways.