ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

THERE IS so much more to animation than gourmet rats and tap-dancing penguins these days. Persepolis has all the innocence of a child’s ink and pen drawings but the style is allied to the very adult subject matter of life in Teheran after the fall of the Shah.

Based on a series of graphic novels, Persepolis was one of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Animated Features. Told in flashback, the screen version tells the story of Marjane, a seven year-old schoolgirl in the Teheran of the 1970s.
She is a feisty little miss, obsessed with Bruce Lee and attracted to the idea that she might be a prophet. When the Shah tumbles, it feels like the dawn of an exciting new era for the country, one that is eagerly embraced by her parents Ebi (voiced by Sean Penn) and Tadji (Catherine Deneuve).

The reality of political repression and growing intolerance is very different, and the film explores the personal cost of the turmoil as her uncle Anoush (Iggy Pop) is arrested and Marjane is sent to private school in Vienna, largely for her own safety. Her fate is to become a stranger in her own country and equally ill at ease in her new home in Austria.

Persepolis is an amazingly compact film that tells a sweeping story with unexpected depth and feeling. The inky, black and white animation has moments of real beauty interspersed with knockabout comic sequences. It doesn’t really feel like a film for children, yet curious secondary school pupils could learn a great deal from it.

Adults will also find it surprisingly compelling and just as eye-opening as many a documentary on the subject. Persepolis is a refreshingly original production that is both informative and entertaining.

Nationwide release

Directors: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
Voice talents: Chiara Mastroianni, Sean Penn, Gena Rowlands, Catherine Deneuve, Iggy Pop, Amethyste Frezignac
Screenwriters: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 96 mins
Country: France/USA
Year: 2007