Persepolis: The Film

The film Persepolis, based on two books of the same name by Marjane Satrapi, was an interesting exploration of freedom as well as a powerful reminder of its cost. The second half of the movie (based on Persepolis 2) was darker, sadder than the first, in part due to the scenes of homelessness and grief/depression, which were really well done. It was hard to watch her lose that spark she had throughout the first part of the movie and I was stunned to find out she was only twenty-one when she married because it seemed that she had lived so much life by then. She matured right in front of our eyes, which was part of the magic of the story, I thought.

I noticed the animation throughout the film, which may have distracted me from the storyline a little. I appreciated the cinematography - the darks and lights coming and going, mixing and matching, and having the color added in tastefully, and only for the present tense (I think). The graphic approach was innovative and interesting, and allowed for visual- and auditory-based insights without words, (emotional affect and gestures, sound effects like bombs or sighs, ages/genders, veil positions, flowers falling from bras etc). As a writer the graphic style memoir reminds me to paint the picture for my reader and that dialog and gestures can carry much of the story. One downside of the animation technique is that as a reader/viewer I am left with a stark 2-D memory of it instead of a fully imagined scene with humans and space, color and warmth.

That said, it was still a moving film. One of the most memorable parts of the movie for me was her insight following her deep dark depression. It was something like: after surviving an oppressive regime, bomb threats and bombs, and the deaths of family and friends, it was the let down, the betrayal, the personal loss of her relationship that brought her to her knees. To me, this reflected back on the solid family life Marjane had growing up. Her parents and her grandmother consistently loved and respected Marjane, and one another, and it is this that allowed her to survive all the other horrors emotionally intact.

But despite her upbringing, and her precocious and outspoken nature, it took Marjane a good long time for her to find her own internal strength, to become whole within herself, so to speak. She seemed to discover by the end of the film that she was free to choose, in fact, must choose, how to be a person, be that in a restrictive fundamentalist or a no-holds-barred country. And that her soul (if that’s not overstating it too much) isn’t determined by what she wears, or whom she hangs out with, or even what she believes, instead, how she dresses, who she chooses to have in her life, and how she manifests her own beliefs are determined by her soul, her real self. This is something her father tries to tell her whenever he leaves her at an airport and says, “Remember who you are.”

One doesn’t know, for sure, by the end of the movie whether she’ll keep in touch with that or not, although, of course, we suspect she will. But by leaving that a bit open, the viewers can look within themselves and try to answer some of these same questions.

"Persepolis- the Story of a Childhood" by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis was a gripping memoir of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian girl who grew up during a time when her country was undergoing both severe internal unrest due to the Islamic Revolution and frightening external attacks from Iraq. As a parallel process to this, Marjane was experiencing her own internal, adolescent unrest in addition to attacks from her teachers (or other extremists) and periodic bombs of bad news about her friends or relatives.

The book was written from the point of view of Marjane as a precocious ten-(to fourteen)-year-old. Her voice, one of the most appealing things about this book, was trustworthy, easy to relate to. It helped me get to know more about Iranian history, culture and politics from an understandable, if not unbiased, perspective.

The use of comic book form was innovative. At first, it seemed to me to be an inappropriate structure to describe a life awash in suffering and loss. As I read on I saw that it mimicked the fact that Marjane and her family witnessed horrors I can only begin to imagine, then went on to shop and gossip and have parties. As one must, I suppose. By the end I felt that the form was perfect for the content.

The opening chapter, “The Veil,” was easily accessible and told us right away where the book was heading. It introduced us to Marjane, the child, with her innocent way of both accepting and rejecting the foolishness of the adults around her. The ending was abrupt but powerful. It left us yearning for more, and so, in retrospect, was a great marketing strategy for her sequel.

Of all the memoirs I have read so far, this one has moved me the most. In general I turn my head away from all but my few chosen battles/conflicts, feeling on some level that I am too sensitive, that I let things bother me too much, better to ignore it. But this memoir broke through that, I was able to enter the life of Marjane and her family, at a time in history when I had only been peripherally attending to newspaper or newscaster accounts of the world. Certainly, I remember words like: “scud missiles,” “hostages,” and “the Shaw,” but, in truth I had absolutely no context from which to comprehend their true meaning. I am grateful to Marjane’s writing for my new understanding.