An engagingly personal tale with an interesting background of history delivered with deceptively basic but very clever animation
As a young woman, Majane reflects on her journey this far in life a journey that has taken her to be an outsider living in Europe but one that she recalls starting as a nine year old girl in Tehran, Iran. Here she was an enthusiastic young girl raised in an intelligent and liberal family who were rebelling against those in power at the expense of some of her family being held in prison. The celebrate when they appear to win the revolution but their hopes are dashed when fundamentalists take control, forcing strict controls on women and putting thousands of those who do not conform into prison. As a teenager, Marji continues to rebel but when her beloved Uncle Anouche is executed and the Iran/Iraq war begins, live becomes increasingly dangerous.
It took me a minute to get around to seeing Persepolis because it just seemed to me that it would be a heavy, subject-driven film. It already had some camps lifting it on their shoulders and carrying it around the animation world, even as others were protesting and dismissing it as more anti-Iranian propaganda released as part of part of the US building the case for war (hmmm a quick dip into the message boards reminds me why I generally stay off message boards!). I watched it recently on a flight on my DVD player and did get a few looks from those sitting next to me over what I imagine was their amusement at an adult watching a cartoon. I wasn't too fussed by this though because my attention was pretty much with the film.
What the film did so well to engage me was tell a personal story but do it in a way that gave the bigger picture as well. Now I know that there will be those that just see this as being propaganda but for me I accept what I am being told as being the perspective of Satrapi. She is not making a documentary, she is telling things from her opinions other opinions exist and these should be sought out rather than just deciding that one successful film means that these are the facts. That said, it is hard to disagree with her presentation of things here. It is at its most clumsy at the beginning, where the young Marji is told stories and introduced to her revolutionary Uncle; here it is a bit more "big picture" and less to do with her as a character, but this does get better and as Marji starts to grow and become more than a pair of eyes but a pair of eyes involved in the world beyond that of her parent's flat. In this shift the film becomes much more engaging as we follow essentially a teenager looking to have fun in this new world of restrictions and perhaps gender bias inherent in the extreme interpretation of her religion.
The creation of the characters is important in making this part, and thus the bigger picture parts, of the film work as well as it did. This creation is down to the animation, the dialogue and the relative actions of the, well, relatives. In the latter two areas the writing keeps everything feeling realistic and convincing, making it easy to be drawn into the story and the lives on display. All those playing Marji deliver but of course for Benites this is mainly about being adorable, which she does. Mastroianni has more to do and she does it well. Thanks to the script she is presented warts and all and at times she is a spoilt and conflicted woman putting some off no doubt but to me only making the film more engaging because it does feel quite honest in its self-reflection. Having her real life mother play her mother was a good bit of casting and does provide some chemistry and tension between the two characters that compliments their performances. All the voice work is good but what I found most appealing was the animation.
Mostly delivered in black & white, without a lot of shading, the animation is deceptively blocky but produces engaging characters which are comic and touching. I particularly liked the way that the animation reflects the film being the memories of the teller, since we are seeing this film inside the head of the adult Marji. How this translates is that things are visually changed to reflect her viewers; so we have the two women challenging Marji being shown as snake-like in their bodies, when in love the city looks soft and the car floats Maji and her new boyfriend home while scenes of destruction are dark and imposing. It is a good way of animating because not only does it visually engage but ti also makes the material more meaningful as well.
Persepolis is not an easy sell on the face of it but the reality is that it is a charming and really well delivered personal story that also plays out the modern history of Iran as a broad, inescapable backdrop to Marji's life (which of course it is). The animation is deceptively basic but used to compliment the telling and characters to good effect. As the makers have said animation is not a genre but a medium and this animated film is a very good personal drama that has the ability to deliver is characters in a historical context.
It took me a minute to get around to seeing Persepolis because it just seemed to me that it would be a heavy, subject-driven film. It already had some camps lifting it on their shoulders and carrying it around the animation world, even as others were protesting and dismissing it as more anti-Iranian propaganda released as part of part of the US building the case for war (hmmm a quick dip into the message boards reminds me why I generally stay off message boards!). I watched it recently on a flight on my DVD player and did get a few looks from those sitting next to me over what I imagine was their amusement at an adult watching a cartoon. I wasn't too fussed by this though because my attention was pretty much with the film.
What the film did so well to engage me was tell a personal story but do it in a way that gave the bigger picture as well. Now I know that there will be those that just see this as being propaganda but for me I accept what I am being told as being the perspective of Satrapi. She is not making a documentary, she is telling things from her opinions other opinions exist and these should be sought out rather than just deciding that one successful film means that these are the facts. That said, it is hard to disagree with her presentation of things here. It is at its most clumsy at the beginning, where the young Marji is told stories and introduced to her revolutionary Uncle; here it is a bit more "big picture" and less to do with her as a character, but this does get better and as Marji starts to grow and become more than a pair of eyes but a pair of eyes involved in the world beyond that of her parent's flat. In this shift the film becomes much more engaging as we follow essentially a teenager looking to have fun in this new world of restrictions and perhaps gender bias inherent in the extreme interpretation of her religion.
The creation of the characters is important in making this part, and thus the bigger picture parts, of the film work as well as it did. This creation is down to the animation, the dialogue and the relative actions of the, well, relatives. In the latter two areas the writing keeps everything feeling realistic and convincing, making it easy to be drawn into the story and the lives on display. All those playing Marji deliver but of course for Benites this is mainly about being adorable, which she does. Mastroianni has more to do and she does it well. Thanks to the script she is presented warts and all and at times she is a spoilt and conflicted woman putting some off no doubt but to me only making the film more engaging because it does feel quite honest in its self-reflection. Having her real life mother play her mother was a good bit of casting and does provide some chemistry and tension between the two characters that compliments their performances. All the voice work is good but what I found most appealing was the animation.
Mostly delivered in black & white, without a lot of shading, the animation is deceptively blocky but produces engaging characters which are comic and touching. I particularly liked the way that the animation reflects the film being the memories of the teller, since we are seeing this film inside the head of the adult Marji. How this translates is that things are visually changed to reflect her viewers; so we have the two women challenging Marji being shown as snake-like in their bodies, when in love the city looks soft and the car floats Maji and her new boyfriend home while scenes of destruction are dark and imposing. It is a good way of animating because not only does it visually engage but ti also makes the material more meaningful as well.
Persepolis is not an easy sell on the face of it but the reality is that it is a charming and really well delivered personal story that also plays out the modern history of Iran as a broad, inescapable backdrop to Marji's life (which of course it is). The animation is deceptively basic but used to compliment the telling and characters to good effect. As the makers have said animation is not a genre but a medium and this animated film is a very good personal drama that has the ability to deliver is characters in a historical context.
- bob the moo
- Dec 28, 2008