I had never heard of, nor even seen, a trailer for The Breadwinner before I went to see the movie. I happened to be walking by the small independent theater near my apartment, saw a poster for the film, and decided to watch it. Going in blind, I didn’t realize until after the screening that The Breadwinner is based on the bestselling book of the same name by Deborah Ellis. The Breadwinner was adapted by the Irish studio, Cartoon Saloon, which also made The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea. The film’s plot revolves around a family struggling under the heel of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The family’s youngest daughter, Parvana, is forced to traverse the streets of Kabul, disguised as a boy or bacha posh (literally translated “dressed up as a boy”), to earn money for their survival after their father, Nurullah, their sole provider, is taken prisoner.

The Breadwinner looks really good. In an age where entire films are made on computers, that may not mean much anymore. Studios can pump out well animated but ultimately mediocre movies all the time. The Breadwinner succeeds not only in its brilliant animation but also through its style and atmosphere. The gentle, hand-drawn animation (and CGI) belie the film’s naturalistic backgrounds, packed with rich detail. In fact, the backgrounds of the film all look like painstakingly crafted oil paintings. The main color palette of the film is various shades of brown, but the visuals never seem boring or dull. Because of this specific palette, the other bright colors are highlighted with importance. The film really cuts loose during the storytelling paper-animation (CGI effects convincingly constructed to look like stop-motion paper cutouts) sequences. The colors here are vivid and vibrant, and the animation is wonderfully juxtaposed with that of the ‘real world’ in which Parvana and her family live.