European Films

Quite simply one of the best book adaptations and animated films to have come out of Europe in recent years, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis is a film experience one is unlikely to forget. The film won a shared Grand Prix at the recent Cannes Film Festival and has already attracted over 700,000 viewers in France since its release three weeks ago. Not bad for an animated film that is mostly in black-and-white, has strong political overtones and is squarely aimed at adults. Equal success should be found on foreign shores, especially with local dubbing, though the voice work of the French cast, including Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve and Danielle Darrieux is exceptional.

Inside the Satrapi home, little Marjane (voiced as a child by Gabrielle Lopes Benites and as an adolescent by Chiara Mastroianni) is brought up by her free-thinking mother (Catherine Deneuve, Mastroianni’s real mother) and loving father (Simon Abkarian), with frequent visits from their foul-mouthed but oh-so-wise grandmother (Danielle Darrieux, already Deneuve's mother in 8 femmes). Their household is hopeful when the oppressive regime of the Shah is brought down by a popular uprising, but despair when the new regime ushers in the Islamic Revolution that led to even more restrictions and, finally, to war with neighbouring Iraq that tried to profit from the country's military weakness after the recent change of regime.

 

By telling the story from the perspective of a young girl and by juxtaposing family life and larger geopolitical and historical happenings, the directors create a powerful tale of growing up in extremely difficult circumstances that is accessible for even those with limited to no knowledge of recent Iranian history. Though animated and with very few graphic on-screen deaths, the events related are certainly not meant for young children. Family members of Marjane are incarcerated, people are intimidated, oppressed and in some cases assassinated. Senseless war violence and  nasty child play are shown side by side to chilling effect. Goods readily available in the West, such as rock music or alcohol, need to be procured illegally or made in secret hideaways (a hilarious scene has Marjane buy an Iron Maiden tape from a dealer on the street as if it were cocaine). 

 

As could be expected of an animated film based on a visual source, Persepolis is extremely faithful to the style of the books. The directors are anything but lazy, however, making the film as cinematic as possible -- going the opposite route of Ang Lee's live-action adaptation of Hulk, which tried to mimic the comic book style as much as possible even in its visuals and editing. Persepolis does not have real actors interacting with drawn-up environments (such as Sin City or 300), which allows its animation style to be even more coherent and its protagonists to go through things no actor would be able to – including a great scene in which Marjane (pronounced "Marzjahn") sees her body go through the growth spurts of adolescence.

 

The animation is a combination of painterly chalkboard details and ligne claire – both of the black-on-white and white-on-black variety – and of 2D, 3D and flash animation, with most of the film’s scenes in clean black, white and greys. The directors use these contrasts often to great effect, for example blending the angry crowds in the streets of Teheran into one uniform block of black to illustrate the force of the masses; or showing a shot-down black silhouette bleeding black blood until the entire screen is black. Black is also the colour of the burqas that rob the women of their individual traits, though, even in this film, eyes can and do tell a lot.

 

Satrapi also includes many pop-culture references ranging from Derrick on a TV screen in a scene set in Vienna to a fade from one of the character's faces to the famous Munch painting "The Scream"; they are carefully dosed, however, and Persepolis never suffers from their omnipresence in the way the Shrek films or works like Shark Tale do -- even if one would recognise none of them, the film would still be as good. A scene involving God in the heavens in dialogue with a historical character as a kind of alternative God is priceless. 

 

The Iranian government is less enthusiastic about the film’s depiction of the Islamic revolution and has called for a boycott – after its Cannes debut, it has convinced several other festivals to drop the film from their programmes. While drinking alcohol or depicting God are against the rules of Islam, this is not what Persepolis is really about. It does not want to shock for the sake of shocking. Instead, it tries to come to terms with growing up, finding oneself and one's own values in a society that sees individualism as something suspect. The grandmother -- voiced with exquisite warmth and humour by Darrieux -- knows the magic word and repeatedly reminds Marjane of what really counts: integrity.