The newly Oscar-nominated “Persepolis” is more animated than it would at first appear to be. You might have to ignore what could seem like a few surface obstacles to motivate yourself to see this stirring, sociallyconscious, coming-of-age memoir based on the life and graphic novels of the film’s co-director and co-writer Marjane Satrapi.
Granted, the medium is minimalist, hand-drawn, largely black-and-white animation. The dialogue is mostly in French (with English subtitles) and the milieu is revolutionary Iran. Not exactly the basis of your typical cartoon flick.
But if you can get past preconceived notions, this insightful and witty piece about defiant grrrl power and the personal toll of modern political tumult will stay with you long after you leave the theater.
The evocative originality of Satrapi’s two-dimensional literary characters has been set into motion in collaboration with co-director-co-writer Vincent Paronnaud to tell a now organically cinematic story of growing up caught intellectually between the worlds of east and west. It traces what happens to the resilient child of sophisticated, highly educated Iranian parents as the shah’s oppressive dictatorship of the ’70s transitions to the even more ruthless regime of the ayatollahs in the ’80s.
Political purges, theocratic fanaticism and the Iran-Iraq war devastate her extended family and her nation.
These tensions serve as the catalysts for the inner conflicts of an iconoclastic firecracker. On the one hand, the fictionalized Marjane (voiced by Chiara Mastrtoianni as a teen and Gabrielle Lopes as a youngster) loves Bruce Lee movies, Iron Maiden head-banging and speaking out with a punk sensibility that becomes ever more forbidden in her increasingly restrictive native culture. On the other hand, when her parents (voiced by Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian) send her away to school in Austria at just 14 to escape the severe punishments her irrepressible spirit might cause, she doesn’t really fit in the free West either.
In dealing with the fallout of social dissonance and young love, “Persepolis” is also a chronicle of how artists are formed.
Inspired in part by her equally eccentric grandmother (voiced with a vivid humor by Danielle Darrieux), Marjane does what centuries of resourceful survivors have done before her. She transforms her pain through expression and creativity. And, thus, she finds a way to vanquish her demons while at the same time giving the rest of us something meaningful, something beautiful to behold.
‘Persepolis’
» Voice stars: Chiara Mastrtoianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux
» Directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
» Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including violent images, sexual references, language and brief drug content
» Running time: 95 minutes
» In French with English subtitles
