Persepolis has been taking film festivals by storm this awards season--and it's easy to know why. Based on Marjane Satrapi's popular autobiographical graphic novel about her coming of age in Iran before the Islamic
Revolution, it follows Marji (voiced by Chiara Mastroianni) from her precocious childhood in a very Western family when the rumblings of the revolution are happening to the full-on religious repression that sets in during her teen years once the Ayatollah came to power--and that resulted in her family's difficult choice to send the outspoken Marji to live in Austria for her own safety.
Persepolis has absolutely torn up the film festival circuit this fall, dominating most awards categories it meets. And while it perhaps couldn't meet my ensuing unrealistically high expectations (I found the ending a little abrupt and unfulfilling in particularly), the movie was still very good. The animation absolutely won me over--Satrapi's art style is simple, engaging, and cool all at once. And Marji and her family are particularly enlightening and poignant windows into the 'real' history of Iran, defying our modern stereotypes of an almost unidentifyably fundamentalist and conservative society--and showing how it got that way in the first place.
You absolutely fall in love with the Satrapi family, and Marji's grandmother (voiced by Danielle Darrieux) is a particular pistol. It's like a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down--you get totally wrapped up in this unexpectedly identifiable and loveable family, but get a social history lesson at the same time. And if you just can't abide the French subtitles, then take heart--an English language version is in the works.
ReelzChannel Rating: 