In 2017, the animated film "The Breadwinner" competed with "Dream Quest" for the Oscar for Best Animated Film. Although "Dream Quest" won the award in the end, "The Breadwinner" also received a lot of attention. The animation, which tells the tragic lives of the people under the Taliban of Afghanistan, has been passed down by word of mouth among film lovers and has won one of the highest honors in the field of animation, the Annie Award, and the 2017 Los Angeles Film Critics Animated Feature Award.
After more than a year, "The Breadwinner" was officially released in China on January 11, 2019.
▲ The poster of the Chinese version of "The Breadwinner"
Unlike the typical American taste of Dream Quest: sweet, dreamy, warm, with an emphasis on personal growth and family values. Although "The Breadwinner" is an animation film, it is far from being a "cartoon" for children in the general sense. It deals with a realistic theme rarely covered in cartoons, and tells the daily life of Afghans under the Taliban.
The protagonist of the film is Pavana, a young girl who grew up in an ordinary Afghan family. Her father was a teacher and her mother was a writer. His father, who lost a leg in the war, supported his family by reading letters in the market, secretly taught his daughter to read and write, and also tried to support the family's life, bringing a slightly lighter light to the gray reality. However, under the Taliban, teaching women to read was forbidden, the father was arrested and imprisoned by the Taliban, and the mother who tried to rescue him was injured.
▲ Stills from "The Breadwinner" The Pavana family
In the absurd society where "women can't go out alone without a man" and "shops can't sell things to women", this family of women can't even go out to buy rice. As a result, the 11-year-old Pavana cut off her long hair, disguised herself as a boy, and went out to work for the survival of her family, becoming a "breadwinner".
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills Women are not allowed to show their faces
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills Pavana cut off long hair for women dressed as men
The subject matter is profound, but the method of narration is very flexible. "The Breadwinner" takes a two-line narrative: one line is Pavana's struggle for her family and survival; the other line is pavana's story for her younger brother, friend Shosia, and her own crisis self: a fairy tale of a boy named "Suleiman" fighting against the evil elephant king to seize the seed of hope.
As the plot progresses, the story and reality merge into one. "Suleiman" is Pavana's brother who died prematurely, and when he was Pavana's age, he picked up a toy on the street one day, but it was actually a bomb... White light flashed, and "Suleiman" became the name of the brave teenager in Pavana's fairy tale.
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills The boy in the fairy tale "Suleiman"
The Breadwinner is based on the novel Pavana's Waiting by Canadian writer Deborah Iris. In order to write this story well, she traveled to Afghanistan several times. Therefore, the details of the film are rich and touching, the Hindu Kush Mountains in the moonlight, the whistling wind of Kabul in the "City of Winds", the desert yellow sand, and the abandoned tanks that can be seen from time to time make the audience immersed in the scene, and the story is real and credible.
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills The country where the people are not happy
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills The long yellow sands of Afghanistan
"The Breadwinner" has been called the Afghan version of "Mulan": the same story of a young girl who goes out of the house and takes on greater responsibility. In a cruel society under the dual oppression of war and religion, Pavana can only exist as an independent identity and gain greater freedom if she disguises herself as a man.
However, the story told by the film, and the way in which it is narrated, goes far beyond "feminism", and it tells about more ancient and solemn themes: good and evil, light and darkness; the power of courage, hope, and goodness. The story begins with the most desperate situation, and slowly there is beauty and strength that emerge from despair.
▲ "The Breadwinner" stills The gritty and brave Pavana
At the end of the story, suleiman in the fairy tale finally returns to his hometown to reunite with his clan, and the real-life Pavana also rescues her father after nine deaths, and the family is finally reunited.
However, although the movie is over, life is far from over. Not only in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, there are still countless Pavanas; in addition to the extreme environment of war, in every angle of the world, there is no shortage of people who bravely face life and move forward tenaciously in the face of hardship. Pavana's bravery, kindness, and brightness inspire everyone.
▲ Stills from "The Breadwinner" Pavana and Dad
"The Breadwinner" and the animated film "Song of the Sea", which has also been released in China, are from the Irish animation studio "Cartoon Salon", whose debut is the animation "The Secret of the Book of Kells", which is known for its beautiful graphics.
▲Animated film "Song of the Sea"
▲ Animated film "The Secret of the Book of Kells"
Unlike the dreamy and beautiful images of The Secret of the Book of Kells and Song of the Sea, the two-line narrative of "The Breadwinner" adopts a completely different painting style.
The part of the real story, the lines are simple, using the overall brown ochre tone, the people and the environment are like a brush of mud, dust; and the fairy tale part, the color is rich and colorful, the shape is quite Afghan traditional national characteristics, while retaining the "cartoon salon" signature dream sense; the contrast between the dream and reality, more shows the cruelty of reality, but also more set off the film's more profound theme: how cruel violence, how poor the environment, can not deprive a person of the richness of the inner world. The young Suleiman uses the story to subdue evil like a god, which means that a powerful spiritual force and the light of human nature will eventually overcome all ignorance and evil.
"The Breadwinner" begins with despair and ends with strength, which is a very solemn work.
▲ Stills from "The Breadwinner"