ALSO SHOWING
Ferdinand The Prince of Nothingwood
Cert: G; Now showing As with comedy aimed at grown ups, comedy aimed at children very much depends on whether the central comic character hits your funny bone. Although there is humour sprinkled throughout this animation, the main source is Lupe, the comedy goat, voiced by Kate McKinnon, so, subtle it isn’t. Although it is unlikely to enter into the realm of animation classics, Ferdinand is sweet and well-intentioned.
Lupe is, apart from a brief appearance by a little girl called Nina, the only female character in a film based on male stereotypes. Adapted from a children’s book of the same name the cartoon examines, albeit subtly, what it means to be a man in the super macho environment of a bull ranch in Spain. All of the young bulls want to grow up to be like their fathers and to gain the supreme honour of being chosen to fight in a bullring. The young Ferdinand is already against fighting when his father does not return from a bullfight so the calf runs away, finding an entirely different life on a flower farm. He grows into a remarkable specimen of giant bullhood (voiced by wrestler turned actor John Cena) and although assumptions are made about his nature, Ferdinand defies the stereotype.
As well as its gender message, Carlos Saldanha’s film is clearly antibullfighting. It is lazy in places, resorting to tried, tested and overdone comedy tricks and baddies. Fun for younger kids. Club Cert: Now showing French documentarian Sonia Kronlund has, since 2002, broadcast a regular radio show whose objective is to show either new things or things that are generally only presented one way. In Afghanistan she found a subject worthy of both descriptions; Salim Shareen, prolific actor and filmmaker, a huge part of Afghan life, swamped wherever he goes, but simultaneously a symbol of a lesser-known Afghanistan.
Sonia and Salim travel together in the interesting dynamic of her filming him whilst he makes a film based on himself, one of the four films he is making at the time. She records his fictionalised version and the real version, to the extent that he will allow it. When she gets to his home, she can speak to his eight sons, but not his six daughters or either of his two wives. The second wife he describes as a kind of treat to himself because his first one was older than him and a bit ugly.
Kronlund’s chain-smoking presence in the doc works well, her genuine anxiety over safety in the still violent country contrasting with Salim’s very visible disregard for caution. The civil war was worse than the Soviet War they say, many, including Shareen, are barely literate because war stopped their education. They talk about it light-heartedly, even though most of them have lived through horror. It’s one of many contradictions about the Taliban, defying yet traditionalist film maker Shareen, that make this documentary fascinating to a specific audience. Club Cert; Now showing IFI