In a world where we’re reduced to watching nothing but talking Cars preaching about pollution, and surfing penguins all for the sake of selling fast food, and action figures, it’s often very exhilarating to watch an animated film that’s about something rather than the excruciating sugary pabulum we’re force fed as film lovers and general movie goers. Even more, it’s refreshing to see an animated film that dares to challenge our views on politics and discusses misplaced man in a foreign culture. “Persepolis” has almost everything to its benefit and thankfully never pigeonholes itself as one particular genre offering, and it works so well in its favor, that it ends as an experience of discovery, rather than a simple 2D world of stark black and whites, and vibrant pastels.
“Persepolis” is that animated film that really makes the genre stand out and shows America that this medium can offer so much more than talking fish. And just the same, the animation benefits the story told here, as Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi tell the story of a young girl coming of age in a world with no place for her. But the added difficulty is that this rebellious young girl, who is pretty much a unique presence of her own by childhood, must find a way to come of age in a society that enforces all women to be silent, subservient, and obedient while she lives through the reign of Shah, and eventually confronting the rule of Islamists. Though crude upon first impression the animation, a combination of blacks and whites, colors, and computer and 2D makes for one of the most expressive animated films released.
But more so, the autobiography of Marjane Satrapi is a fascinating one, since she’s an intuitive and expressive child drawn into the Iranian revolution and is forced to grow up long before her time. As the violence rages, she begins picking allegiances and learns all too early what the price of dissent can cost you as she sees her family and friends fall to the oppression of her government who display swift justice with execution. Satrapi’s film dares to ask existential questions about human rights, and displaced culture, all the while braving thought provoking glimpses at a woman who has no sense of identity. How do you maintain your freedom and individualism in a society that enforces uniformity and conformity with deadly force? Is remaining unique and true to yourself worth your life? Marjane is an incredible character and by association, Marjane the woman presents an incredible scope of the child she was and the woman she grew to be among feuds and a war that managed to swallow the land and punish its mothers, sisters and daughters in the process.
Marjane is an incredibly admirable woman and is painted as a very sympathetic heroine in every element, as she attempts to understand the French culture she flees toward when she can barely understand her own. Amidst the decadence and beauty, she gains disgust for her own origins and seems to find an independence and empowerment when she returns to Iran to learn of the injustices served onto women who are confined to their homes, and arrested for every imaginable offense. War is an endless black void that sucks us in even when we’re far away from it, and the struggles of Marjane to live another life in peace while thinking of the endless war is frustrating, all the while her recollections of her childhood and her home are recounted through black and white flashbacks which help to convey the tone of desolation and futility in the hope that peace will come to her homeland someday.
Though both bleak and depressing, there’s a stern hint of comedy peppered throughout the story that will inspire various bouts of laughter and amusement, one scene in particular involving Marjane singing “Eye of the Tiger.” Marjane is a woman who has to keep her identity in check even amidst the horrible war, and the collective disgust of foreigner toward her race, and Vincent Paronnaud presents us with incredible scenarios of Marjane struggling with her faith and personal relationship with her god, who she shuns and attempts to find solace in someone who can understand her ordeal. Though utterly simplistic, “Persepolis” recounts the epic war time heartbreak and black hole of violence and horror in the vein of films like “Grave of the Fireflies” and “Osama,” and it’s a film I hope gets its due someday. A pleasant surprise, “Persepolis” is a beautiful and wrenching autobiography with wonderful animation, competent voice acting, and a story that needs to be heard again and again.