Persepolis (***½)

Directed by: Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud
Starring (voices): Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian
Seen: June 16th 2009

***½ Out of ****

Based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis tells of Marjane’s formative years in Iran, Vienna, Iran again and lastly France. The film is presented in a rich and vibrant black & white, with only a few very short “present day” scenes in colour. The story is told mainly by use of flashbacks as Marjane is sitting at an airport, and it starts with Marjane at age 10 in Iran – dreaming of being a future prophet and also an imitation Bruce Lee.

The film tells of the suffering of Iranians under the then Shah during the early 80’s and the revolutionaries and their attempts to remove the Shah from power in a very militaristic state. During the next 12 years this happened, but the result was not what everyone had in mind, since the so-called liberation of Iran brought about a new, even more oppressive rule under the auspices of democracy.

During all this Marjane is followed as her parents send her to a catholic school in Vienna, fearing for her arrest due to her outspokenness. At first Marjane enjoys the new school and culture, but the more she tries to fit in, the more she realises that the chasm between her culture and the European culture is something that she won’t easily gap. Where she comes from, they have real problems, where most Europeans simply complain about things, and this gets on her nerves. Going back to Iran, she is greeted at the airport by her parents, and she starts realising that conditions in her country have worsened.

The film deals with issues hard and soft equally effectively, and even though the animation is done in a very simple way, it is done in such a way that the viewer is left with no question as to the emotions being conveyed. The backdrops are absolutely fantastically rendered, and some bits of this simple animation left me thinking that big and expensive is not always better, in fact, it mostly isn’t. Parts of the film are so beautiful that it slowly breaks the viewer’s heart, while others truly lift the spirits. Not only does the viewer see what happened, you are actually invited into this world, and the animation is absolutely awe-inspiring all the way through.

Being a 2D animated film, in this world of 5 - 10 minute Tom & Jerry (among many others) cartoons, the film does feel a bit long-winded, even though at 95 minutes it comes in pretty short for a full feature film (remember the 3rd Lord of the Rings film? The extended edition came in at 251 minutes). But then there are stretches that pull you in so completely that you live with the characters on display and forget that this is an animated film. And for that, together with its unflinching and honest look at human rights violations in Iran, this film should be widely distributed and heavily applauded.