Marjane Satrapi's “Persepolis” is one of the best movies to come out in a while. But I can think of at least three reasons why people's knee-jerk reaction to the film “Persepolis” might be: "not interested."
First off, it's animated. Some folks, especially those over 12 years old, don't like animation. And this isn't exactly a movie for the kids.
Second, it's got subtitles. Again, some people just don't want to go to the movies to read and grapple with foreign languages.
Finally, it's about a young girl growing up in Iran during the revolution that ushered out the west-friendly Shah and ushered in the west-unfriendly Ayatollah. That's a lot of strikes against one film.
But despite its potential shortcomings, “Persepolis” delivers. Satrapi, the feisty heroine of the film, even under an Islamic headscarf, begins as a mischievous, Bruce Lee-loving child who sees the world through her parents’ worried eyes.
Caught in a country moving backwards while the rest of the world moves forward, little Marjane rebels by embracing punk music and heavy metal and buying Iron Maiden tapes on the sly from cloak-and-dagger street vendors.
One by one, she sees her relatives and family friends jailed or harassed by the new regime. Breaking the news often falls to her brassy, resilient grandmother who says that the bad times will pass, but deep down she seems to know otherwise.
Marjane's westernized parents send her to school in Austria to get away from the repression of Iran, but as lousy as her life was back home, she misses it terribly. She grows up, goes through various poses of rebellion, falls in love, falls out of love, embraces being seen as an exotic outsider and in Europe and distances herself from it. What she really wants to find is a place that feels like home. And you feel her heartache as she's unable to find it.
“Persepolis” is heartbreaking, enlightening, and true, proving that you don't need Pixar-style razzle-dazzle to enchant an audience.
Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in “Vantage Point,” Dennis Quaid stars in a conspiracy thriller about an assassinated president. In “Heathers,” Wynona Ryder's subversive high school comedy gets a 20th anniversary edition. And in “Mad Men,” season one of AMC's hit show gets a box set.
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