gray4

This beautiful animated film, by Czech director Michaela Pavlátová , provides a striking portrait of family life in Afghanistan before the 2021 Taliban takeover. The central character, Herra, is a Czech student who falls in love with an Afghan student, marries and joins his extended family in Kabul. She is shocked and saddened by the restrictions imposed on women and girls. Even though her husband, Nazir, is more liberal than other family members (apart from the wise, tolerant grandfather), Herra has to conform to the family's religious and social norms. Unable to produce a child, she and Nazir adopt a strange-looking foundling, little Maad, who becomes an increase influence on the family's life as the film progresses.

The animation is beautifully drawn, with clear-cut characters and dramatic views of Kabul street life. There is a gorgeous fantasy scene where Herra's rebellious niece, races through Kabul with other girls, hair flowing freed from the ubiquitous headscarf. And Maad, who despite the film's title, looks desperately sad throughout except when, hidden in a burkha, he dashes about shouting "I'm invisible!" Nazir and Herra find work with the American forces and a medical NGO respectively and the film shows the culture clash between those providing Western "support" and the Afghan cultural norms. Herra tries hard to live within those norms but the film shows a depressing picture of the indignities created by those norms, with young girls forced into early marriage and wives told that they are owned by their husbands - and this in Kabul before the American withdrawal and Taliban takeover in 2021.

Thanks to BFI for releasing and streaming this important film. It makes an interesting comparison with the 2017 animation, also Afghanistan-based, The Breadwinner.

Summer in the Forest takes us into the L'Arche community outside Paris and the life of its founder, the Canadian Jean Vanier. An ex-British naval officer, Vanier founded the community to provide a home for those whose disabilities had forced them into grim institutions.

In particular, the film involves us in the lives of some of L'Arche's residents, both in France and in one of its offshoots in Bethlehem. Their humanity, their foibles and their endearing friendship are all demonstrated powerfully throughout the documentary. Vanier's philosophy that love, peace and friendship will drive out fear pervades the whole film.

By its end we not only understand better the challenges faced by those branded as 'not normal' but we also take with us the serenity that pervades a summer in the forest. And that heart-warming feeling captured by director Randall Wright, along with the superb photography and spot-on musical score by John Harle merits the 10 rating.

After watching the Swedish television series starring Krister Henriksson as Wallander, it takes some considerable adjustment to believe that the bear-like Rolf Lassgard is really playing the same detective. Similar adjustments are needed as the familiar characters from Mankell's great novel and the Swedish TV series appear with different faces.

However, the overall sense of gloom and angst that characterises the Wallander series is maintained throughout this 2003 two-hour adaptation for television (now shown on UK television for the first time). The twists and turns of Mankell's plot contrast the gentle Skane countryside with the violent bombs, mines and shootings.

The plot, familiar not only through Mankell's novel but a recent UK TV adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh is bleak, verging on the gruesome - details omitted to avoid spoilers. But the storyline has been simplified, so that the reasons for Wallander's depression and drinking are omitted and his complicated personal life streamlined to an affair with colleague Maja (excellent acting by Marie Richardson)and a clumsy one-night stand in Stockholm. The result is an absorbing two-hour tale, but lacking some of the intensity of the later and shorter adaptations for television.