Persepolis

Persepolis, based on a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, has been adapted into an animated film, directed by the author and Vincent Paronnaud. Unlike most animated films, which are primarily geared at children, this one tackles the very adult subject of growing up during the Iranian revolution.

This is Marjane's autobiography, presumably. Iran prior to the Islamic revolution is a very Western place, and as a child she lives in a world where there is modern music and alcohol and western clothes. However, her parents and their social circle hate the Shah and his dictatorial ways. They boot the Shah out, but find the old adage of "be careful what you wish for" menacingly salient as the government that replaces the Shah is far worse, and soon women are forced to wear headscarves and the number of political prisoners compound exponentially.

Marjane, though, is a teen with a taste for the West, and tries to remain modern and Western. There is a very funny scene when she wanders down the street and sinister men in topcoats are selling not drugs but pop music cassettes--they mutter the names Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden and Michael Jackson.

Soon Marjane becomes too questioning of authority and her parents decide to pack her off to a boarding school in Vienna. She falls in with a punk, nihilist crowd, but their privileged boredom rankles her because she knows what the price of freedom can be. She also starts becoming interested in boys, and has a few misadventures in that department.

This is a charming film, with an animation style close to Satrapi's black and white line drawings (there is only a bit of color whenever she moves to a new place). However, I'm not sure it ever fully achieved the balance between Satrapi's teenage coming of age, kind of an Iranian Gidget, and the seriousness of the overall theme--how does one finally come to the decision that one must leave one's homeland forever? The film doesn't trivialize the politics, and I'm not really sure what I'm asking it to do, but for me it is an interesting look at a different culture more than a moving story.