Movie Review - 'Persepolis'

Persepolis

Featuring the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darriuex, and Catherine Deneuve
Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parranaud
Rated PG-13

It's not every day, of course, that you see black and white animated French movies about growing up during the fundamentalist Islamic revolution in Iran. But Persepolis, the autobiographical film of writer-director-comic creator Marjane Satrapi doesn't force its novel world on us anymore than Ratatouille, the other animated French delicacy from 2007.

This is an engaging, frank, and eye opening journey that follows one impressionable young girl with a big imagination as she becomes a strident opponent of her country's enslavement of its women, rebelling in small ways like buying Michael Jackson tapes, and it's through the central character that Persepolis becomes less about a seismic shift in the world's geo-political landscape with the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and more about finding your individuality in a world that forbids it.

Bucking the trend of today's big budget animation, Persepolis is hand drawn, with a distinct style that Satrapi borrowed from artist David B., whom she met while studying in France. As much as her craftsmanship and talent is visible in the animation, it's equally apparent in her storytelling, which never labors itself or the audience, is well-paced, delves into the minds and hearts of a correct number of character (that is, no more or less than we would question), and strikes with a sardonic sense of humor you never see coming.

The relationships that unfold, particularly between Marjane and her grandmother, a matter-of-fact Marxist holdover from the more politically open days before the revolution, provide a great foundation for Satrapi the storyteller; she's free to sneak in the occasional pop culture reference (like singing "Eye of the Tiger" to show her strength of character) or take the dimly lit back road of Marjane's early marriage, which doesn't deliver much on its own.

Despite the black and white animation and the subject matter, there's a rambunctious nature to Persepolis, filling it with an incredible amount of three-dimensionality for a two-dimensional universe.