“Persepolis” is an odd mix — a French-language film that tells the story of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and its aftermath through the eyes of a girl using a relatively primitive form of mostly black-and-white animation. Yet for the first half of the film, this unlikely blend works wonders, creating captivating images of an almost unimaginable time without sacrificing insight into either political change or emotional realities.
Unfortunately, as the world changes around her, Marjane doesn’t change much herself. That lack of emotional maturity on the part of the film’s main character means a lack of emotional maturity on the part of the film that follows her feelings so closely.
“Persepolis,” named for the ancient Persian capital, is co-written and co-directed, along with Vincent Paronnaud, by Marjane Satrapi based on her autobiographical graphic novels published in France, where she now makes her home. Marjane as a child is voiced by Gabrielle Lopes; Marjane as a teenager and adult is voiced by Chiara Mastroianni, while her mother is voiced by Miss Mastroianni’s real-life mother, Catherine Deneuve.
Born in 1969, Miss Satrapi grew up in Tehran amidst revolution. “I like the Shah,” she tells her horrified parents as a child, saying she’s been told by God himself — and her teacher, of course — that his rule is sound. Set straight by her communist parents, the easily changeable Marjane is soon chanting, “Down with the Shah.”
She’s not the only one. The young and the old demonstrate against the tyrannical monarch, including Marjane’s uncle Anouche (Francois Jerosme). “Our torturers were trained by the CIA,” he tells his niece of his time in jail (the Americans don’t come off too well in this French-made tale).
The Shah soon falls, and the Satrapi family celebrates. “It can’t be worse than under the Shah,” Marjane’s mother says of the new Islamic Republic. But the Ayatollah Khomeini teaches the Shah a thing or two about repression. Day-to-day life changes dramatically: Women are forced under the veil, while men must give up alcohol.
This potted history of modern Iran is quite funny, when it’s not harrowing. However, when a teenaged Marjane is shipped off to the French Lycee in Vienna, the tale founders, despite the addition of color as she removes her veil and smokes a cigarette in the freedom of Austria. Homesick and haunted by guilt, she eventually returns to Iran, only to leave again a few years later.
While Marjane learns something about herself — she simply can’t make a life in a fundamentalist Islamic country — it’s about all she learns. “Persepolis” is a coming-of-age tale whose heroine never gains much in the way of self-knowledge, interests or direction. There is what is supposed to be an epiphany in which a depressed Marjane finally decides to embrace life again. But listening to her sing “Eye of the Tiger” in a terrible English accent is cringe-making, not inspiring (the rest of the music, by Olivier Bernet, is much better suited to the story).
“Persepolis” has some beautiful moments and some haunting ones, as when we see a line of prisoners, their heads chopped off one by one. However, a film requires more than great visuals to be the great work of art this one might have been. It needs that thing both the Shah and the mullahs sought to control — a soul.
**1/2
TITLE: “Persepolis”
RATING: PG-13 (mature thematic material including violent images, sexual references, language and brief drug content)
CREDITS: Written and directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi based on the graphic novels by Miss Satrapi (in French with English subtitles)
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes
WEB SITE: www.sonyclassics.com/persepolis
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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