When she was still a child, Marjane Satrapi was told by her father, “Never forget who you are and where you are from.” This seriously entertaining, entirely admirable film adaptation of the Iranian woman’s acclaimed Persepolis series of four graphic novels – the first of which was published in 2000 – shows full well that she, who co-directed this animated offering with Vincent Paronnaud, most definitely took in that piece of paternal instruction. And I state this despite the fact that the movie’s dialogue is not in the author’s mother tongue but, instead, in French (or English, as in an alternative version also being released in Hong Kong cinemas).
Satrapi’s autobiographical work establishes very early on that her life has been as cosmopolitan as it has been eventful. It’s not just that Marjane (as the film’s main character is referred to) attended the French School in Tehran and, later, the French School in Vienna and lived in three countries. Rather, it is revealed that she was a Bruce Lee acolyte in pre-Islamic revolution Iran and a fan of Michael Jackson and Iron Maiden – as well as a viewer of Godzilla movies – after the revolution, as well as a participant in more than one pop-culture movement during her Viennese sojourn.
Additionally, the hand-drawn illustrations make some of the parties Marjane attended, with or without other members of her family, look like a social gathering of left-wing French intellectuals. (One contributory factor to that might be that the majority, if not all, of the attendees are in black attire in this largely black and white movie).
For all that though, there is enough in this anecdote-filled account to show that life in Iran, before and after the fall of the Shah in 1979, was quite a different kettle of fish from that in, say, France, where this Jury Prize winner at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival was made. To be sure, much of this difference is conveyed in ways that sends chills down one’s spine. And it’s not just the reports of a grandfather’s imprisonment, a beloved uncle’s execution and what happened to a beguiling female before she could be executed that do so but also tales which involve the mundane or trivial, like a plastic key an adolescent boy is given which, he is told, will allow him to enter heaven if he were to die as a martyr for his country.
These examples notwithstanding, Persepolis is filled with a surprising amount of warmth, whimsy and wry – or even plain laugh-out-loud – humour. More specifically, balancing those stories that could send many a sane individual into a depressed funk, if not downright despair, are beautiful and lovingly drawn portraits of a wise and wonderful grandmother and caring parents. Then, there’s the irrepressible Marjane herself, whose thoroughly compelling coming-of-age tale demonstrates that even in seriously constraining circumstances, room still can be found for choices in life, and no small amount of fun and creativity besides.
Yvonne Teh |
