Marjane Satrapi
Persépolis

INTRODUCTION

I look out the window and see a beautiful bell tower standing out against a "Celentano-style" sky. A perfect postcard if it weren't for the fact that it's Monday morning and such spring beauty has the taste of an immense joke. And so, for the second weekend in a row, my good intentions of taking a trip to the mountains have gone awry due to the weather. Once again! No problem: luckily, I managed to swiftly lift my rear end off the couch, avoiding seeing Maurizio Costanzo more or less skillfully playing the sax in the ultimate trashy Sunday program. I took a nice walk around the city, without a car, and stumbled upon a poster for Persepolis. I had heard very good things about this animated film based on a comic by an Iranian woman who fled to France. Intrigued, I entered the cinema...
As soon as I crossed the threshold, I was faced with an almost endless crowd of women. I almost felt embarrassed. Groups of friends must have arranged to meet for the 7:30 p.m. show, I thought. A low, dense, and persistent noise immediately creeps into my ears and continues as the lights go out and the images materialize on the screen. While the Eni advertisement reminds me (twice) that it really cares about me, I can't help but wonder whether those piles of crap, the people being ridiculed by the mini-feminine universe sitting next to me, really deserve it.

The doubt, however, will forever remain unsolved //
As the film begins and the audience finally remains silent.  

THE FILM

Persepolis obviously presents a feminist point of view, and honestly, considering Marjane Satrapi's life, how could it be otherwise? I mean, living and growing up in Iran during a transition period from dictatorship to the revolution that gave rise to the rise of the fundamentalists must have been terrible. As a backdrop to her childhood were the ruins of the war with Iraq, which in eight years caused a million deaths. During the war, Marjane was sent to Austria by her parents, and once she returned, she was forced to dress, eat, drink, and even run in a certain way to comply with the strict rules imposed by the harsh regime. Such a context certainly influenced her socialization and worldview. Especially for her, who had the chance to experience, during her early adolescence, a context completely different from hers: Europe. The men she comes into contact with (Western and not) in the film are often depicted as oppressors, selfish, and in some cases, simply inept and incapable. The positive male figures, however, either have been murdered (except her father) or have ended badly anyway.

However, dismissing the film as a mere manifesto of the feminist movement would be a trivialization of the author’s work since Persepolis is a truly well-packaged animated film. Starting from a flashback in a French airport (a country she’s lived in since she was 24), Satrapi revisits with extreme realism her entire life as a lively, curious, and nonconformist girl. She does so with intelligence and rhythm, but even in the most hilarious moments, a natural veil of sadness remains visible for being forced to leave the homeland to which she was deeply attached.

Photographing and condemning the stupid narrow-mindedness of a regime is one thing, but managing to, in some cases, mock and showcase with sharp jokes its unjust rules is moving on a higher level. Marjane has some for everyone: even for us Westerners, with our supermarkets full of food, we have the arrogance to talk and judge.
This film exudes deep melancholy and despair for a native country that the director no longer recognizes. The film is a continuous change of pace: we move from the period of romantic frivolities that characterize adolescence to the horror of war and repression with disarming ease. We laugh heartily at the wonderful (wise and fun) figure of the grandmother, but a second later we are faced with executions. The same goes for the soundtrack that ranges from metal to pop to ethnic in order to "keep up" and complement a colorful and original picture: the author’s tumultuous life. The strength of Persepolis, therefore, lies in the heterogeneity of the narrative it proposes and its ability to detach from a single theme (that of the harsh condition of her country). On the contrary, Marjane fills these 95 minutes of denunciation with touches of joy, casual philosophy, everyday life, and many small nuances that really make a difference because they make the work very credible and truthful. I imagine this is one of the reasons why the current Iranian government strongly condemned Persepolis and Satrapi.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The black-and-white drawings (with only a few sparse additions of color) have faithfully replicated those of the eponymous comic, and although they are not perfect and realistic like those of recent animated films "à la Shrek," they turn out to be pleasant. For the first few minutes, I was puzzled as I had never seen a cartoon that dealt with real events before, and as soon as I left the theater, I wondered if the use of actors would have made the film better. Maybe not. In this way, Marjane wanted to give the images an essential role, leaving all the space possible to the themes she addressed with great intelligence, managing to capture the audience's attention.  

Enjoy the film