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Persepolis (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Persepolis' is a 2007 adult animated biographical drama film based upon Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. It was written and directed by Satrapi in collaboration with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The title references the historical city of Persepolis.
The film was an international co-production made by companies in France and Iran. It premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, where it co-won the Jury Prize, alongside 'Silent Light'. In her acceptance speech, Satrapi said "Although this film is universal, I wish to dedicate the prize to all Iranians."[http://www.festival-cannes.com/index.php/en/archives/film/4434938 'Persepolis'] on the official site of the Cannes Film Festival It was released in France and Belgium on 27 June 2007, earning universal praise from critics, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 80th Academy Awards.
Plot
At the Paris-Orly Airport in France, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi looks at the flight schedule before taking a seat and reflecting on her childhood.
During the 1979 Iranian revolution against the Shah of Iran, Marji's middle-class family participates in the rallies, but she is forbidden from attending. One day, Marji's uncle Anoosh arrives to have dinner with the family after being released from a nine-year prison sentence, inspiring Marji with his stories of his life on the run from the government.
The Shah is eventually deposed and elections for a new leading power commence; Marji's family's situation does not improve, and they are upset when Islamic fundamentalists win the elections and start imposing strict Islamic law. The government forces women to dress modestly and wear headscarves, and Anoosh is rearrested and executed for his political beliefs, along with other political dissenters. Over time, many Iranians escape to various countries abroad.
Though disillusioned, Marji and her family try to adapt to life under the new regime. The IranIraq War breaks out soon after, and Marji witnesses firsthand its horrors; meanwhile, the Iranian government begins implementing laws that cut down even more on social freedoms. Later, her uncle Taher suffers a heart attack and must go to England for surgery, but the borders are closed, and only people approved by the Board of Health can leave. When Marji's aunt attempts to get permission, she finds that the hospital director she must deal with is her former window-washer, who is incompetent and totally submissive to his religion.
Marji and her father go to see Khosro, a man who prints fake passports and promises to make the passport in a week. Khosro is sheltering Niloufar, a young woman wanted for her Communist beliefs, to whom Marji takes an instant liking. Later, Niloufar is spotted and promptly arrested and executed; Khosro's house is ransacked in the process, and he flees without making the passport. Marji watches as her uncle dies, and the family tries to find solace in secret parties where they enjoy pleasures the government has outlawed, including alcohol.
As she grows up, Marji refuses to stay out of trouble, secretly buying heavy metal music on the black market, wearing unorthodox clothing such as denim jackets, and celebrating punk rock and other Western music sensations like Michael Jackson, which nearly causes her to be arrested. She is expelled from school when she openly rebuts a teacher's lies about government abuses.
Fearing her arrest, Marji's parents send her to a French lyce in Vienna, Austria where she lives with Catholic nuns, but is upset by their discriminatory and judgmental behavior. Marji makes few friends and ultimately feels isolated with people who view her with open disdain. After a while, she is thrown out of her shelter for insulting a nun, and moves between houses until she rents a room from Dr. Frau Schloss, an unstable former teacher.
One night, Marji hears her grandmother's voice telling her to stay true to herself as she leaves a party after lying to an acquaintance that she is French; her would-be lover reveals his homosexuality after a failed attempt at sex with her. She goes on to engage in a passionate love affair with a man named Markus, which ends badly when she discovers him cheating on her. Schloss then accuses Marji of stealing her brooch, and Marji finally leaves. She spends the day on a park bench, reflecting upon how "stupid" she has been, and realizes she has nowhere else left to go. After living on the street for a few months, she contracts bronchitis and almost dies.
Marji awakens in a Viennese hospital and returns to Iran with her family's permission, hoping that the end of the war will improve their quality of life. After spending several days watching television, she falls into clinical depression, and attempts suicide by overdosing on medication. She falls asleep and has a dream about God and Karl Marx telling her what is important and encouraging her to live. Her determination is renewed, she attends university classes and starts a relationship with fellow student Reza.
With Iranian society stricter than before, Marji, while waiting for Reza in the plaza one day, lies to a police officer that a man made advances on her to avoid being arrested for wearing makeup. Her grandmother is disappointed by Marji's behavior and berates her, telling her that both her grandfather and her uncle died supporting freedom and that she should never forsake them or her family by sacrificing her integrity. Realizing her mistake, Marji delivers a speech during a class at the university, and her grandmother is pleased to hear that she openly confronted the blatantly sexist double standard in her university's forum on public morality, but both Marji's and Reza's families are forced to pay a fine when they are caught holding hands out in public. To avoid even more scrutiny from the religious police, the two get married, yet Marji's mother worries that her daughter has made a terrible mistake in being married at such a young age. A year later, Marji's relationship with Reza falls apart and Marji, after having a talk with her grandmother, decides to get a divorce.
The fundamentalist police discover and raid a party Marji is attending, and while the women are detained, the men escape across the rooftops. One of them, Nima, hesitates before jumping, consequently falling to his death. After Nima's death and her divorce, Marji leaves Iran permanently to avoid being targeted by the Iranian authorities as a political dissident. Before leaving, she takes a trip to the Caspian Sea with her grandmother and visits the graves of her grandfather and uncle. Marji's mother forbids her from returning, and Marji agrees. Her grandmother dies soon after her departure.
Returning to the present, Marji collects her luggage and gets into a taxi. As the taxi drives away from the airport, the driver asks her where she is from and she replies "Iran", keeping the promise she made to Anoosh and her grandmother that she would remember where she came from and always stay true to herself. She recalls her final memory of her grandmother telling her how she placed jasmine in her brassiere to smell lovely every day.
Cast
* Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane
* Catherine Deneuve as Mother
;French version
* Gabriele Lopes as child Marjane
* Danielle Darrieux as Grandmother
* Simon Abkarian as Father
* Franois Jerosme as Uncle Anoush
;English version
* Amethyste Frezignac as child Marjane
* Gena Rowlands as Grandmother
* Sean Penn as Father
* Iggy Pop as Uncle Anoush
* Mathilde Merlot as Tina / First Voice
Cinematography
The film is presented in the black-and-white style of the original graphic novels. Satrapi explains in a bonus feature on the DVD that this was so that the place and the characters would not look like foreigners in a foreign country but simply people in a country to show how easily a country can become like Iran. The present-day scenes are shown in color, while sections of the historic narrative resemble a shadow theater show. The design was created by art director and executive producer Marc Jousset. The animation is credited to the Perseprod studio and was created by two specialized studios, Je Suis Bien Content and Pumpkin 3D.
Animation and design
Directed by Christian Desmares, the film was produced by a total of twenty animators. Initially opposed to producing an animated movie due to the high level of difficulty, producers Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Regault gave protagonist, Marjane Satrapi, alternative options of film production to avoid animation. As admitted by producer Robert, "I know the new generation of French comic book artists quite well, and I'm afraid of Marjane's. I offered to write an original script for her, because I didn't want to work on an animated movie at all...I knew how complicated it was". And yet, despite the difficulty, the producers followed through with Satrapi's wishes and focused on interpreting her life story as depicted in her novel 'Persepolis,' ""With live-action, it would have turned into a story of people living in a distant land who don't look like us," Satrapi says. "At best, it would have been an exotic story, and at worst, a 'third-world' story".
The animation team worked alongside Satrapi to gain a detailed understanding of the types of graphic images she deemed necessary for accuracy. Following her guidelines, the animators, such as interviewee Marc Jousset, commented on their use of the "tradition animation techniques" Satrapi requested to keep the drawings simple and avoid the "more high-tech techniques" that "would look dated". Satrapi's vision, according to Jousset, involved a lot of focus on the characters' natural, humane physical imperfections.
During their initial stages of production, the animation team attempted to use 2D image techniques "on pen tablets," but were immediately unsatisfied with the product due to the lack of definition, Jousset has said. Applying traditional techniques as simple as paper and ink to the production allowed Satrapi to use methods she was familiar with. As a result, Satrapi crafted an image depiction she, herself, would recognize as her own work, and thus, her own story. "It was clear that a traditional animation technique was perfectly suited to Marjane's and Vincent's idea of the film".
Choosing black and white as the film's dominant colors was an intentional choice by Satrapi, along with the director and animation team, to continue on the path of traditional animation techniques. Despite its simplicity, members of the animation team such as Jousset discussed how black and white makes imperfections more obvious: "Using only black and white in an animation movie requires a great deal of discipline. From a technical point of view, you can't make any mistakes...it shows up straight away on the large screen". In addition to color display, the animation team worked especially hard on techniques that mimicked the styles of Japanese cartoonists, known as "manga," and translating them into their own craft of "a specific style, both realistic and mature. No bluffing, no tricks, nothing overcooked". According to Jousset, "Marjane had quite an unusual way of working...Marjane insisted on being filmed playing out all the scenes...it was a great source of information for the animators, giving them an accurate approach to how they should work". With this in mind, the animators commented on the immense hardships they faced when creating each image of "1,200 shots" through Satrapi's perspective because even though "Marjane's drawings looked very simple and graphic...they're very difficult to work on because there are so few identifying marks. Realistic drawings require outstanding accuracy". Despite the difficulties in working with animation film, however, Satrapi's drive and determination to make the film motivated the animators to finish each graphic image with full accuracy. Following alongside a more traditional style of graphic imagery was not only difficult in terms of drawing, but also in terms of locating a team to draw the images since traditional animators "hardly exist in France anymore". With a group of more than 100 people, though, animator Pascal Chev confirmed the variety of style each team member brought to the table: "An animator will be more focused on trying to make the character move in the right way. Assistant animators will then put the final touches to the drawings to make sure they're true to the original. Then the 'trace' team comes in, and they work on each drawing with...a felt pen, to ensure that they are consistent with the line that runs throughout the movie".
Although it was hard to craft realistic cartoon drawings, Jousset said the biggest challenge was staying on schedule and within budget of "6 million Euros, which is reasonable for a 2D movie made in France", but that "I think the culmination of the fact that it was a true story, that the main character worked with you, that an animated movie dealt with a current issue and that it was intended for adults was tremendously exciting for the team".
Reception
at the premiere of 'Persepolis'.
Critical response
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 96% based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The site's consensus reads: "'Persepolis' is an emotionally powerful, dramatically enthralling autobiographical gem, and the film's simple black-and-white images are effective and bold". Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 90 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Roger Ebert of the 'Chicago Sun-Times' gave the film four stars out of four, writing that although its black and white animation "may sound Spartan", it is "surprisingly involving" and that Satrapi's story is told "caringly, lovingly and with great style". He added, "while so many films about coming of age involve manufactured dilemmas, here is one about a woman who indeed does come of age, and magnificently."
'Time' magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it #6, and called it "a coming-of-age tale that manages to be both harrowing and exuberant".
It has been ranked No. 58 in 'Empire' magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.
International government reaction
The film has drawn complaints from the Iranian government. Even before its debut at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the government-connected Iran Farabi Foundation sent a letter to the French embassy in Tehran reading, "This year the Cannes Film Festival, in an unconventional and unsuitable act, has chosen a movie about Iran that has presented an unrealistic face of the achievements and results of the glorious Islamic Revolution in some of its parts." Despite such objections, the Iranian cultural authorities relented in February 2008 and allowed limited screenings of the film in Tehran, albeit with six scenes censored due to sexual content.In June 2007 in Thailand, the film was dropped from the lineup of the Bangkok International Film Festival. Festival director Chattan Kunjara na Ayudhya said, "I was invited by the Iranian embassy to discuss the matter and we both came to mutual agreement that it would be beneficial to both countries if the film was not shown" and "It is a good movie in artistic terms, but we have to consider other issues that might arise here."
'Persepolis' was initially banned in Lebanon after some clerics found it "offensive to Iran and Islam." The ban was later revoked after an outcry in Lebanese intellectual and political circles.
Screening controversies
On 7 October 2011, the film was shown on the Tunisian private television station Nessma. A day later a demonstration formed and marched on the station. The main Islamic party in Tunisia, Ennahda, condemned the demonstration. Nabil Karoui, the owner of Nessma TV, faced trial in Tunis on charges of "violating sacred values" and "disturbing the public order." He was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of 2,400 dinars ($1,700; 1,000), a much more lenient punishment than predicted. Amnesty International said that criminal proceedings against Karoui are an affront to freedom of expression.In the United States, a group of parents from the Northshore School District, Washington, objected to adult content in the film and graphic novel, and lobbied to discontinue it as part of the curriculum. The Curriculum Materials Adoption Committee felt that "other educational goalssuch as that children should not be sheltered from what the board and staff called 'disturbing' themes and contentoutweighed the crudeness and parental prerogative."[http://www.nwnews.com/old/archive/2009/030209.pdf Woodinville Weekly] "Persepolis"
Awards
; 80th Academy Awards
* Nominated: Best Animated Feature. Additionally, it is the first traditionally animated nominee since 2005's 'Howl's Moving Castle'. It was also France's Best Foreign Language Film entry, but was not nominated.
; 65th Golden Globe Awards
* Nominated: Best Foreign Language Film
; 62nd British Academy Film Awards
* Nominated: Best Film Not in the English Language
* Nominated: Best Animated Film
; 35th Annie Awards
* Nominated: Best Animated Feature
* Nominated: Directing in an Animated Feature Production
* Nominated: Music in an Animated Feature Production
* Nominated: Writing in an Animated Feature Production
; 33rd Csar Awards
* 'Won': Best First Feature Film (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi)
* 'Won': Best Writing Adaptation (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi)
* Nominated: Best Editing (Stphane Roche)
* Nominated: Best Film
* Nominated: Best Music Written for a Film (Olivier Bernet)
* Nominated: Best Sound (Samy Bardet, Eric Chevallier and Thierry Lebon)
;2007 Cannes Film Festival
* 'Tied': Jury Prize
* Nominated: Palme d'Or
;20th European Film Awards
* Nominated: Best Film
;3rd Globes de Cristal Award
* 'Won': Best Film
;2007 London Film Festival
* Southerland Trophy (Grand prize of the festival)
;2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival
* Special Jury Prize
;2007 So Paulo International Film Festival
* 'Won': Best Foreign Language Film
;2007 Vancouver International Film Festival
* 'Won': Rogers People's Choice Award for Most Popular International Film
;2009 Silver Condor Awards
* 'Won': Silver Condor Award for Best Foreign Film
See also
* Iranian cinema
* List of animated feature-length films
* List of films based on French-language comics
References
Further reading
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