Michaela Pavlatova's My Sunny Maad is one of three films in competition at the 2021's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. All three animated films depict wars within the Middle East and/or Central Asia. The other two films, the excellent Flee and the underwhelming Lamya's Poem, focus on refugees escaping wars in their country and fleeing to Europe. In many ways, My Sunny Maad tells the opposite story: It's about a white Czech woman named Helena who falls in love with an Afghan classmate and leaves Prague for Kabul in the early 2010s. However, Helena has no idea what post-Taliban life in Afghanistan is like and the adjustments that will be asked of her -- and, in some cases, choices that she'll be forced to make.
Based on the novel Frišta by Petra Procházková, the animated film touches on a lot of themes from cultural clashes to the horrors of war, but more than anything, it focuses on the extreme lengths that people will go to be with their family.
During the course of the film, Helena changes her name to Herra -- giving up much of her freedom to marry her beloved Nazir. In public, she faces extreme misogyny. In private, she and the other women in Nazir's family have rich and fulfilling interpersonal lives. The other Westerners at the feminist NGO she works for are baffled by her willingness to submit to her husband. She dreams of having kids, but struggles with fertility and ends up adopting a big-headed boy named Mohammed (Maad for short) who has clearly been through some awful situations.
Others can speak to whether My Sunny Maad's portrayal of life in post-Taliban Afghanistan is accurate, but the film makes for an interesting slice-of-life story. Nazir's extended family provides a wide range of perspectives and personalities. Nazir's family and their differing personalities range from rebellious to fundamentalist and from warm demeanors to harsh ones. The film's narrative is episodic and the animation has a charming cartoonishness about it. The first two-thirds of the 80-minute movie is unexpectedly easy to watch. For all the troubles this family faces, there's a sense of life going on and people adjusting to their circumstances with palpable humor and love.
However, the film also shows that some circumstances can't be adjusted to in life. Throughout the first hour of the film, the war in Afghanistan is addressed via tales of American bombs missing targets, awkward encounters with soldiers, watching the news, and, of course, the trauma etched into Maad's face. In the final act, the violence takes center stage, and My Sunny Maad quickly becomes one of the saddest animated films ever made. His mother, Herra, is forced to make tough decisions. Audiences can agree with her decisions, or not, but whatever judgment is had of the situation, this mother's will to make her adopted son happy proves to be incredibly moving.
Directed by Michaela Pavlatova, My Sunny Maad features the voices of Zuzana Stivínova, Shahid Maqsoodi, Haji Gul Asir, Martha Issova, Hynek Cermak and Ivan Trojan.