Persepolis

Persepolis (Directors: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud): Based upon the graphic novels which were block­busters in France (and now pub­lished in one volume), Persepolis faith­fully brings Marjane Satrapi’s story and images to the screen and then won­der­fully sur­passes them. Growing up in Iran under the repres­sion of first the Shah’s dic­tat­or­ship and then that of the Islamic Republic was not easy, even for someone like Satrapi whose family had money and con­nec­tions. The film grabs our sym­pathy through sev­eral strongly-drawn (if you’ll for­give the pun) char­ac­ters, from her saucy grand­mother to her dashing polit­ical dis­sident uncle Anoush. But it’s ulti­mately the story of Marjane her­self that car­ries us along. Her devel­oping polit­ical aware­ness is con­nected to her per­sonal his­tory of dis­place­ment and the ordinary “feeling dif­ferent” of adolescence.

What makes the story even more powerful is the superb anim­a­tion. Two-dimensional and for the most part in black and white, it non­ethe­less never feels less than thrilling, and just when I was fin­ished shaking my head at some gor­geous and poetic flourish, there was another one. I haven’t seen a film that was this con­sist­ently innov­ative for a long time. And yet it didn’t feel showy, as if it were the latest CGI tech­no­logy trying to draw atten­tion to itself. I had the feeling of looking over the shoulder of an intensely tal­ented artist dood­ling in her note­book while telling me the most incred­ible story.

Best of all, at a time when many people are thinking of Iran as a poten­tial enemy, it’s cru­cial to see a human story from a place where the civil­iz­a­tion is thou­sands of years old. There isn’t much his­tory in the film, but what’s there is presented simply. I was left wanting the film to con­tinue both back­wards and for­wards in time, and des­per­ately hoping along with Satrapi that the future is brighter for the long-suffering people of Iran.

Teaser
Trailer
Official Site

(9/10)

Tagged as: animation, iran, TIFF