Persepolis

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So most of the movies I see in the theater are at the theater less than a mile from my house It's one of those $3 theaters with a few screens, pizza, and beer. After being a total Bear Tooth junkie for a couple years, I've had a hard time shelling out $10+ for a movie I can see for a third the price if I'm just patient. Plus, this theater will occasionally show art-house movies, foreign films, and classic films. I all truth, Portland has no shortage of cheap or off the beaten path theaters, and if I wanted to see a different off-brand movie every night, I probably could. But this theater is just down the street, takes about 4 minutes to ride my bike there, and I like that. (And any place around here that feels familiar is a good place for me. It's still not really home here...)

So I saw Persepolis last weekend. Persepolis is a French film which tackled the animation of a series of graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman currently living in Paris. Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel duo, Persepolis, and Persepolis 2, are autobiographical in nature, covering her childhood amidst revolution, time at school in Austria, and growth into womanhood. It is a story about idealism, disillusionment, and realism, a common life-story told through extreme circumstances.

Before you read on, just know that I do recommend seeing this film. It was a fresh perspective on life, filled with animated realism. However, if you do not wish to have your perceptions changed before you get a chance to see it for yourself, do not read on.

SPOILERS ALERT!

The more I think about the film, the more I like it, but my initial reaction to the film was mixed. First of all, and strictly on the surface, I don't really care for the illustration/animation style. There is somewhat of an elegant simplicity to the un-textured characters among simple backgrounds, but the drawings themselves weren't exactly the kind of drawings I would seek out. There were several sections where the main character goes through energetic, somewhat rebellious periods, in which the animation changed to exaggerate that energy. These energetic sections were my favorite parts, the animation taking on a fluidity and character that seemed fresh in the context of the entire film. But overall the style itself was not the kind of animation I seek out.

This film was originally voiced in French, and in the version I saw, it had been re-dubbed in English. Generally re-dubbing is easier to get away with in animation as the mouths of characters aren't ever 100% accurate anyway. However, I think I would have rather seen the film in the original French with English subs. I feel like a couple of the character's English voices were poorly chosen, particularly that of Sean Penn, the voice of the main character's father. I suppose it would have taken away from the visuals of the film to have to read subtitles, but I really think I would have preferred it.

One interesting perspective I enjoyed was with regard to the political themes and ideals which are a huge part of the film. The main family are communist, which creates a problem when the Taliban government is put in place. I feel like I've been conditioned so much to think that democracy is the end all political system, that America, shining example of healthy government that it is, is the end all of political systems. So to see a family whose passion and obsession is communist just seems so backwards, and yet there must be validity there. Not that I think Communism is my preferred form of government, but our consumeristic "democracy" seems a far cry from healthy and a far cry from Biblically sound leadership. Persepolis affords at least a tiny glimpse at the other side of the coin.

I also had a mixed reaction to the start of the film because for the first half-hour or more the film feels like a history lesson on Tehran and Iranian culture. While I found that interesting, I was really hoping for something more. I always feel like animation has such huge potential to bring us to amazing places, and a history lesson almost seemed below its capabilities. However, it was pretty cool to hear about real life in Tehran amidst the potentially positive political revolution, but which turned sour once the Taliban was fully in power.

Personally, I like a movie that doesn't always give you a tidy formulaic ending, if only because that's how life is. But at the same time, movies can be great because they don't have to reflect real life. They can go anywhere and do anything, and be idealistic if they want to be. Persepolis isn't idealistic. At all. The story ends, and while the main character has changed and grown as a person, it was hard to tell if her life's path had taken her forward or merely further off to the side without much forward movement, like swimming against a current. So I don't really know if I liked the ending, but I'm not sure I disliked it either. And maybe that was the kind of reaction the film was trying to get.

So all in all, Persepolis is certainly worth seeing, a portrait of humanity amidst the rubble of a broken nation, though perhaps it's not as incredible as many critics would have you believe. But then again, I'm acting as a critic of sorts for the moment, so take this all with a grain of salt.