smashingly funny and disarmingly astute (and tragic) tale of growing up, girl or otherwise
It's a tricky thing to do a coming-of-age film without pouring over the sentimentality. Sometimes it's all a matter of the sense of humor, enriching the lines of the totally terrifying feeling of "growing up without a clue what to do" with the protagonist. With Persepolis, the background of the Iranian war and even growing up in a state of "terror" (or, for a big chunk, feeling the guilt of being away from one's home as this goes on), isn't necessarily the main focus.
It's much more universal in essential terms, which is why I as a 23 year old white guy connected with it practically as strongly as I did to the quintessential coming-of-age film The 400 Blows. It's about someone young trying to carve out what the hell place they'll have in society, for themselves and how to make sense of the BS that amounts around everyone in living up to expectations, staying true to family, or just to live on and not crawl up into a total ball. Persepolis's hero is a little girl who grows up, starting in 1978 Tehran going through 1992, and sees socio-political strife in its extreme, lives as someone who is relegated among all women to be second class citizens, and becomes attached to- and sees- people die right in her family and circle of friends. And she has to still cope with being a girl, then a teen girl, and finally a young adult.
It's all the more harrowing because Marjane Satrapi, the author of the original comics and the basis for the tale, goes for three things: 1) she wants to stay true to a subjective (but potent) view of Iranian society, of the impact of the war and the Shah and a existential crisis coming this way and that, 2) while doing this she puts in little stinging bars of satire, with Marjane as an adolescent donning "Punk is Not Ded" on her back and sneakers, the "puppet" presentation with the story of the Shah, and other smaller touches that come at surprising moments, and 3) enlivening it with an animation technique that's simple in characterization (smiles drawn with small lines, contours very concrete), but with the abstractions, the things that make animation "Pop", she makes some distinct, cool challenges to stir the pot (just watch when Marjarie and the other girls run from some cops after a party is busted, a character doesn't make the jump, and the view stays on the moon and sky, straightforward like a kids book).
And, as well as with these three, you get the bond between the little girl and her grandmother, and it's not contrived or with the granny some super-being of sentiment or too wacky (that's left to the woman in Vienna with the retard dog). She's a strong, cynical but surefire of principles that might be taken with the next generation in a country that is so blown to bits like Iran that saying "stay true to yourself" isn't simple proselytizing, it's sound advice from the demoralization in this world. I loved their scenes as pure character-driven bits, where another filmmaker might've overclouded this with the message of political strident.
This isn't to say Satrapi doesn't make her points through the medium. But it's all about this character, not simply her world. Her journey, her ups and downs, her morale lowered and raised, her sense of humor and scathing sense of decency tested, if only for her own sanity. It might seem delirious to make any kind of comedy out of the Iran/Iraq conflict, but Persepolis handles this better than any movie I've seen this year (maybe only comparable to Juno, where teen pregnancy was given the spunky beat of human wit). Through Iron Maiden bootlegs, deaths in the family, bad boyfriends in Vienna, homelessness, and her "Eye of the Tiger" tribute in her own personal resurrection, and then into a failed marriage, it's often very funny, surprisingly so. But then the right barbs of tragedy come in, folded in like a living, breathing graphic novel should.
With great voice-work, a unique front of (lack of) color brought in, and as sharp a script I've seen in any animated or coming-of-age flick, it's a small, crucial testament to getting creative with a strange, oft terrible but personal surrounding.
It's much more universal in essential terms, which is why I as a 23 year old white guy connected with it practically as strongly as I did to the quintessential coming-of-age film The 400 Blows. It's about someone young trying to carve out what the hell place they'll have in society, for themselves and how to make sense of the BS that amounts around everyone in living up to expectations, staying true to family, or just to live on and not crawl up into a total ball. Persepolis's hero is a little girl who grows up, starting in 1978 Tehran going through 1992, and sees socio-political strife in its extreme, lives as someone who is relegated among all women to be second class citizens, and becomes attached to- and sees- people die right in her family and circle of friends. And she has to still cope with being a girl, then a teen girl, and finally a young adult.
It's all the more harrowing because Marjane Satrapi, the author of the original comics and the basis for the tale, goes for three things: 1) she wants to stay true to a subjective (but potent) view of Iranian society, of the impact of the war and the Shah and a existential crisis coming this way and that, 2) while doing this she puts in little stinging bars of satire, with Marjane as an adolescent donning "Punk is Not Ded" on her back and sneakers, the "puppet" presentation with the story of the Shah, and other smaller touches that come at surprising moments, and 3) enlivening it with an animation technique that's simple in characterization (smiles drawn with small lines, contours very concrete), but with the abstractions, the things that make animation "Pop", she makes some distinct, cool challenges to stir the pot (just watch when Marjarie and the other girls run from some cops after a party is busted, a character doesn't make the jump, and the view stays on the moon and sky, straightforward like a kids book).
And, as well as with these three, you get the bond between the little girl and her grandmother, and it's not contrived or with the granny some super-being of sentiment or too wacky (that's left to the woman in Vienna with the retard dog). She's a strong, cynical but surefire of principles that might be taken with the next generation in a country that is so blown to bits like Iran that saying "stay true to yourself" isn't simple proselytizing, it's sound advice from the demoralization in this world. I loved their scenes as pure character-driven bits, where another filmmaker might've overclouded this with the message of political strident.
This isn't to say Satrapi doesn't make her points through the medium. But it's all about this character, not simply her world. Her journey, her ups and downs, her morale lowered and raised, her sense of humor and scathing sense of decency tested, if only for her own sanity. It might seem delirious to make any kind of comedy out of the Iran/Iraq conflict, but Persepolis handles this better than any movie I've seen this year (maybe only comparable to Juno, where teen pregnancy was given the spunky beat of human wit). Through Iron Maiden bootlegs, deaths in the family, bad boyfriends in Vienna, homelessness, and her "Eye of the Tiger" tribute in her own personal resurrection, and then into a failed marriage, it's often very funny, surprisingly so. But then the right barbs of tragedy come in, folded in like a living, breathing graphic novel should.
With great voice-work, a unique front of (lack of) color brought in, and as sharp a script I've seen in any animated or coming-of-age flick, it's a small, crucial testament to getting creative with a strange, oft terrible but personal surrounding.
- Quinoa1984
- Feb 2, 2008