Persepolis
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Kent Turner -- School Library Journal, 12/18/2007 10:20:00 AM
Marjane Satrapi is in a position most writers would envy. The Iranian-born, French-based graphic novelist cowrote and codirected the animated film Persepolis, drawing on her autobiographical books Persepolis (2003) and Persepolis 2 (2004, both Pantheon). Lucky for us, Satrapi is as engaging and wry a storyteller on the screen as she is on the page. Her most difficult decision must have been deciding what to omit from the books.
The film begins at the onset of the Islamic revolution, with nine-year-old Marjane, a Bruce Lee-obsessed pupil at a French secular school. The widespread jubilation of the Shah’s fall is swiftly followed with restrictions by the paranoid new regime. Her school closes down—bilingual schools are now deemed symbols of capitalism and decadence, and by decree, she has to wear a veil.
Her handsome Uncle Anoosh, a communist jailed under the Shah and now freed, firmly believes that the religious authorities won’t know how to lead the country and the proletariats will inevitably rule—he will be summarily arrested and executed under the pretense of being a Russian spy.
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Marjane and her grandmother. Photo courtesy of Sony |
The film’s conversational and confessional narration flows from one episode to the next, touching on all the books’ major turning points. Not for a moment does it feel like you are sitting through Modern Iranian History 101.
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Marjane with two guardians of the revolution. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Inc. |
Warning: Persepolis uses the ubiquitous “Eye of the Tiger” as an anthem for self-determination. Don’t hold it against the film as Marjane does an amusing send-up of the song, terribly off-key and in a heavy French accent. And for those who admired the books but don’t like foreign-language films (all the dialogue is in French), you have no excuse. Just think of the subtitles as graphic novel captions.
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Marjane with a friend. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Inc. |
95 min.
Rated PG-13
French dialogue with English subtitles
