Is there still a person walking on the earth that thinks animation is just cartoons? If so, line ’em up for a viewing of THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL.
Sit aghast at this story of Afghanistan under the intolerable rule of the Taliban.

Directors Zabou Breitman (her fifth film) and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec(her first) make formidable film making collaborators in this watershed water colour animation, a gorgeous visual style which both real and dream like, a harmony of hostility and humanity. Like life, especially in this forlorn, God forsaken war torn country, lines dissipate with the sun or don’t reach all the way to their end.

Based on the Novel by Yasmina Khadra, THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL’s Script, Adaptation & Screenplay is accredited to Sébastien Tavel and Patricia Mortagne with Zabou Breitman, with Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec credited as Artistic Director.

The film begins with sallow louts slaughtering a swallow, a symbolic silencing of Spring. The natural world is abused as is the cultural world, with Images of cinemas shuttered, bookstores boarded up and abandoned.
Atiq is a prison warder in a women’s prison where the population is swelling under Sharia law – females being the lawless, immodest and immoral beings they are. The doubling of arrests and incarcerations and subsequent executions mirror the double standards of the misogynist Taliban males. Atiq’s wife is terminally ill which brings an added weight to their already weighed down existence.
Across town, Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love, but also burdened by the oppressive Taliban regime. Zunaira is an artist Mohsen an historian, intellectuals despised by the Taliban.
Zunaira is a drawing teacher at an underground school as well as still drawing herself, and so one of the beautifully inspired choices of THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL has the heroine of an animation film drawing herself. Given representing the human body is against the law under the Taliban, having Zunaira drawing herself – naked – is a determined, detail slap in the face to this odious regime.

Mohsen and Zunaira question themselves about the profoundly pertinent problem faced by many people enduring oppressive regimes – Should they escape Kabul or should they stay to prepare the future free of the restrictive regime?

The beautifully rendered and sublime images in THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL are matched by the exquisite performances – Simon Abkarian as Atiq, Hiam Abbass as his wife, Mussarat , Zita Hanrot as Zunaira, with Mohsen voiced by Swann Arlaud.

With executions of women by stoning featuring as curtain raisers for a stadium footy match, THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL sure ain’t Disney.