Add Persepolis to your list!

If you didn't get a chance to watch it on the big screen, you shoud consider renting Persepolis. It's a wonderful film (in french with english subtitles) that I saw last winter (thank you the Darkside!).

It started with a book.

"...Published in 2003, Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis depicts Iran's recent history through the saucer eyes of a feisty girl whose childhood is suspended by the 1979 Islamic revolution. At first, nine-year-old Marji is thrilled by the tumult around her, but as she enters adolescence she chafes under the restrictions of the new regime. Between art classes where chador-clad women pose as models, the teenage Satrapi and her friends secretly flirt, smoke dope, and swig homemade wine. You gotta love this girl: After convincing the fearsome female morality police not to lock her up for wearing a punk-rock jacket and a Michael Jackson button, she sneaks home, rips off her head scarf, and plays air guitar to a clandestine rock cassette..."

Then came the movie.

"...Now living in self-imposed exile in Paris, the 38-year-old cartoonist has produced an animated version of her memoir. The movie won the 2007 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and packed theaters in Europe. An English version, featuring honey-voiced Catherine Deneuve as Satrapi's mother, Sean Penn as her father, and Iggy Pop as her uncle, was released in the States at the end of 2007..."

I really enjoyed the movie for many reasons, here are a few:

- It's a memoir and a poignant story. "... It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine-year-old Marjane that we see a people’s hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power — forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands..."

- It's an animated movie in black and white, quite unique in its style. Refreshing change.

- I found the relationship between the main character and her grand mother delightful!

Now keep in mind that history here might be slightly revisited by Marjane Satrapi, not all critics were as enthousiast as I am. Some of them said: "While Satrapi’s animated film may be fun and visually enticing, historically, it is inaccurate and misleading. It is said that the film is aimed, primarily, at non-Iranians who, at best, have a partial and incomplete knowledge of Iran’s general history..."

April 8, 2008, we drove up to Portland to a Literary Art and Lectures evening: Satrapi spoke for an hour. She gave us a better insight to her upbringing, her motivations and opinions all in a broken English (yes, worse than mine) that I could barely understand, but it was worth the trip.