‘My Sunny Maad’ Review: A European Woman Rejects Western Freedoms for Love in Post-Taliban Kabul

A Czech woman married into a working-class Afghan family provides a nuanced perspective on life in Kabul in the interregnum between Taliban rule in the animated drama “My Sunny Maad,” from director Michaela Pavlátová.

Based on a novel by the Czech investigative journalist Petra Procházková, it sensitively portrays the complex environment of Kabul in the second decade of the 21st century.

And it feels eerily prescient in the way it captures the ambivalent feelings expressed by many Afghanis toward the West.

Current events in Afghanistan as well as the surge of interest in the Danish animated film “Flee” should spark extra desire to see this strong, humanistic film, which nabbed the jury prize in Annecy.From the opening moments in which the film enters the window of an Afghan house, we see things through the point of view and savvy narration of blond, gray-eyed Herra (voiced by Zuzana Stivínová).

She

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