Girls
passing for boys was a staple of Shakespeare’s comedies, but the stakes were
never so precariously high as they are for young Parvana. In Taliban-dominated
Kabul, the arrest of her father, the male head of household, effectively
imposes house-arrest on his wife and daughters. For their continued subsistence
survival, Parvana must pass herself off as a boy, but the consequences will be
unspeakably brutal if she is discovered. Islamist misogyny and intolerance have
dire consequences in Nora Twomey’s The
Breadwinner, an
animated GKIDS release, which opens this Friday in New York.
Parvana’s
father Nurullah is a former schoolteacher, but the former Soviet occupiers cost
him a leg and the current Taliban oppressors left him unemployed. Books and
photos are now forbidden and women can only leave their homes accompanied by a
senior family member. When a former pupil has Nurullah arrested out of spite
and fundamentalist fervor, there is no one left at home to shop for food or earn
money. As their supplies dwindle, Parvana tries to make purchases at the
market, but no vendor will risk incurring the Taliban’s wrath by selling to
her.
Out
of desperation, Parvana disguises herself as a boy, donning the clothes of a
brother killed by a Soviet booby-trap. In the short term, Parvana develops the
survival skills necessary for day-to-day survival. She also rekindles a friendship
with Shauzia, a former classmate in very much the same situation. However, her
long-term goal of securing her father’s freedom remains elusive. Thus far, she
only has a beating to show for her efforts.
Frankly,
the punch to the solar plexus she takes from a prison guard is far from the
most brutal attack on women viewers witness in Breadwinner. GKIDS has often pushed the envelope of animation
sophistication, perhaps mostly notably with the urbane and elegiac Chico & Rita, but Breadwinner is easily their toughest
film yet. Its PG-13 rating is debatable, but there is no question Twomey shows
the violent, intolerant realities of life under the Taliban, in uncompromisingly
vivid terms. There is also a messiness to the conclusion that will frustrate naïve
viewers, but it stays admirably true to reality.
Twomey
co-directed The Secret of the Kells and
served as “voice director” of Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea, which are certainly credits that inspire confidence, but Breadwinner is still a shockingly
powerful cinematic statement. Arguably, Deborah Ellis’s YA novel could only be adapted
as an animated film, because a live-action feature would place its primary lead
in grave danger, much like the young actor in The Kite Runner, except it would be even worse for a girl.
Regardless, Twomey and screenwriter Anita Doron do right by Ellis’s characters
and the real-life girls and women they represent.