Paris (AFP)

Talking about Taliban Afghanistan by choosing animation, such is the challenge of "Swallows Kabul", theatrically Wednesday, delicate adaptation of Yasmina Khadra's hit novel, revisited with a clean pencil stroke.

At the origin of this project, the actress and director Zabou Breitman who called upon the facilitator Eléa Gobbe-Mévellec, with whom she co-directed this project.

"I found that sometimes, in the animation, the game was not always top", explained Zabou Breitman in Cannes, where the film was presented (in the section Un certain regard). He has since won the Valois de Diamant at the Angoulême festival.

To give life to this poignant love story against the backdrop of fundamentalism, she called on the actors Simon Abkarian, Hiam Abbas, Zita Hanrot and Swann Arlaud, who not only lent their voices, but were also filmed in train to play.

"It was more than a recording: the actors were dressed, we had the chadris, the turbans, and even the Kalashnikovs," says Zabou in the notes of intent of the film. It is from these scenes that the characters were drawn.

On the screen, the viewer easily recognizes the character played by Simon Abkarian (Atiq) or the one played by Zita Hanrot (Zunaira), best female hope in 2016 for "Fatima" and currently on the bill of "School life" .

This desire to be closer to the characters fits perfectly into the story.

"The swallows of Kabul" tells the story of Mohsen and Zunaira, a young couple in love, artist and freedom-loving who struggles to adapt to life under the Taliban regime. Their destiny will cross that of Atiq, a former mujahideen who has become the head of a women's prison, who watches, out of sight, his sick wife, Mussarat.

Eléa Gobbe-Mévellec's clean lines and desaturated palette (who previously worked on the film "Ernest and Célestine") lend a great sweetness to a harsh story, involving scenes of stoning, imprisonment and violence.

If the film takes liberties compared to the original novel (the action takes place especially in 1998 and not in 2001), it has received the support of the writer Yasmina Khadra who accompanied the various screenings of the film in Cannes.

Published in 2002, "Swallows Kabul" has sold in France to more than 600,000 copies all editions.

© 2019 AFP