ScreenWize

It’s easy to generalize away the troubled events of other nations in a history of dates and statistics. Take Iran for example - there was the fall of the Shah in 1979, followed by the Iran-Iraq war that lasted for the next eight years with a million Iranians killed. With such a dramatic big-picture narrative, personal stories tend to get lost. Persepolis switches all that around. It’s a beautiful and genuine story of a young girl growing up in this difficult period of Iranian history, reminding us that for all the tragedy and death there are always people living out life, making do the best way they can, and fighting the system in little ways.

Marjane Satrapi was that little girl. Born into a noble family (ironically with communist beliefs), she watched the transformation of her nation during the Iranian Revolution and witnessed the horrors of the war with Iraq, until her family sent her to Vienna to finish her schooling. She returned to Tehran a young woman and completed a visual arts degree before moving to France where she became a graphic novelist. Persepolis is a film version of her autobiographical graphic novels, a French animation (with English subtitles) with some well-known French actors voicing the characters.

The 2D animation has been designed to faithfully complement the style of Satrapi’s books: it’s mostly in black and white and has a delicacy and simplicity that match the world-view of the young and rebellious Marjane (voice of Chiara Mastroianni) as she comes of age. There’s a practical, down to earth approach to the story-telling that never gets politically preachy about the changes that occurred in Iran as religious fundamentalism grew in force. Rather we watch Marjane trying to get her hands on some Iron Maiden tapes, or sneaking out to an illegal party, or throwing caution to the wind and letting her hair out of her headscarf. She searches for love, for meaning and for friendship and finds it mostly not with the boys she meets, but in her Grandmother (voice of Danielle Darrieux) who is as feisty as the young Marjane, but wiser about the world. Whatever life throws at Marjane she questions and fights, clearly becoming stronger for the battles. Catherine Deneuve voices Marjane’s mother, and it’s a charming tale that won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2007 and a nomination for an Academy Award this year. SW

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon