I watched Persepolis yesterday and was blown away. I was blown away not only by the film, but also the amount of people in the theater (it was a Sunday evening showing and the show was sold out!).

First of all, the end of the last post when I posted it as a trailer decried the visual style as looking like The Critic. While I really like the critic, the visuals were much nicer than that film. I felt that Persepolis was like watching a French Takahata film, but with better design and animation than all but one of his works, My Neighbors the Yamadas. This is a rarity in animation, a mature realistic film that still would be far weaker in live action, really only Takahata in Japan makes films like these, and its refreshing to add another film and another country to this very small list.



The film begins by showing Marjane as an adult in Charles De Gaulle Airport, dressed in a veil waiting for a flight to Tehran. As she waits, she recalls why she is going on this trip. A flashback by showing Marjane as a young girl during the revolution in Iran, somewhat naieve about the political situation, even though both friends and family are affected by the violence that is plaguing the streets. In this part of the film there was a lot of humor to be had through this naivety.

As the film progresses you watch Marjane grow older and the country grow more repressive. Eventually Marjane's parents send her off to Europe so she can live a better life. Her experience is mixed, she tries to grow up, adapt and adjust to life overseas but constantly faces challenges, from her own stubbronness to her lack of understanding how westreners live their lives day to day.

The film continues both in Europe and in Iran, showing each year of her life, while the film has a political backdrop of the events going on in Iran at each stage of her life, the primary focus is on her. We see everything that happens to her from first love, to deep depression, to a drawing the closest to nudes possible in an Iranian college.

One would think that a film such as this would be better suited to live action. The answer is no. Marjane Satrapi(the author who also took animation classes in art school) and Vincent Paronnaud, the films directors, do something that only 3 other directors (Satoshi Kon, Isao Takahata, and Lee Seong-kang) have done in animation, present a live action suitable film and make it work by presenting a hyper real personalized vision of reality. What I mean by this can be explained by scenes where the directors show people slowly fading away into a black background when dying, her punk rocker friends from Amsterdam flying off like birds when she looses touch with them, bread ducks made by Marjane's uncle floating in an imaginary sea as she goes to bed. All of these scenes were shot in a stark black in white style, oftentimes using a digital layering effect to make them seem imaginary and other worldly when appropriate. Another scene that really stood out was when she thought she found love with a man, and while she was in love he was depicted as dapper and elegantly handsome, when she broke up with him, he was depicted as disgusting and weak. This is amazing stuff, visually more elegant than a Takahata film, while at the same time capturing all of Takahata's strengths. I kept thinking of Only Yesterday (Omohide Poro Poro) in terms of its storytelling while watching this film, and Only Yesterday is a tough film to match for conveying believable characters even if said characters were real people, they felt like real people, and not overly glossed (for the most part - see below).

Thematically the film is driven by Marjane's rather stubborn idea driven personality. While I consider this to be a draw for the film, its also kind of a weakness. I felt that a few things she did seemed to fall on the fact that she was a moody character, and that maybe some of the reasons for her actions needed to be fleshed out a bit. Now this is an adaptation of a 2 book long comic, and for purposes of making a convincing film I could understand why some exposition could be eliminated. I had heard the comic book was very wordy, and wordyness would bog down a movie.

While the studio 4C fanboy in me hopes that (if its even nominated, I should know later today), Tekkon Kinkreet wins the Oscar for best animated feature film I wouldn't be unhappy if this film wins. It deserves all the accolades it can get, and in france it was nominated for non animation awards, which is an important step towards animation growing to be more than just crap for kids.

Rating: ***** / ***** (5 stars out of 5)