PÖFF 2016: Breath

Right there on the swing she sits, her hair flowing, uncombed like always. Sometimes her brothers and sisters call her Scruffy, sometimes Cotton Field – always for the same reason – her messy hair.

We are taken care of as children and do not know as much as when we become older. There is less to worry about, but it does not mean that the things that are important to us as children have less significance. You see, for Scruffy, despite the fact she is from a poor family, it is very important for her to study hard. She has one dream, to grow up to become a doctor – all to cure her father who has been told he will die as a result of asthma.. Equally important, is to run away from her grandmother who is almost always lurking around the next corner with a comb to fix her messy hair. Death is too abstract to understand, war is a word one hears on the radio that grownups sometimes listen to. Yet, as Scruffy lives through her days full of happiness and misery at full speed, the most tumultuous years of Iran unveil in the background, as we are introduced to the Revolution and the Iran-Iraqi war through the eyes of a child.

This approach brings a unique viewpoint and even more so, lets us experience it, as the child actor Seyedeh Sareh Nour Mousavi playing Scruffy brings a mesmerizing and yet very real little girl to the big screen. We feel for her, we fall in love with her and breathe together with her as dark events turn her life upside down. This incredible film becomes a journey unlike any other, as it touches and surprises throughout.

Maria Reinup