The following sounds like a fascinating premise for a movie: a teenage punk girl growing up in the Ayatollahs' Tehran. Featuring, in the english language version, the voice of Iggy Pop. Animated, so that the flights of her fancy can come to life.
If only Persepolis has stuck to this brief. The pictures, based on Satrapi's comic strip, are charming. Recent Iranian history is more than fit material for a major animated film. Everything's in place.
Unfortunately all the right ingredients don't make for a compelling film. Part of the problem is that Persepolis is actually the first chapter in Satrapi's autobiography. Autobiography is not the easist subject matter for a film. Good autobiography (eg Proust) rambles, follows blind alleys, has no great need to stick to narrative conventions. The most important moments in a life might have nothing to do with the most dramatic moments. A fascinating life can make for a tedious autobiography, and the dullest of lives might make for the most exciting. From what the film discloses, Satrapi has lead a reasonably interesting life, but except for the Iranian context (and her near run-ins with the revolutionary guard make for the richest material) there's nothing crying out to be documented.
In the manner of autobiography, the narrative does indeed potter around, from Tehran to Vienna and back again, via one or two failed loved affairs and the inevitable family ties. As a book this might not matter, but as a film it lacks structure. Perhaps this relates to the difference between reading and watching, I'm not sure, but no matter how pretty the pictures, if they appear to be telling us a story and then don't, they run the risk of becoming tedious. I also got the feeling that the animation didn't help to develop or sustain tension. It's hard to think of great animated drama, on celluloid at least. Animated action perhaps (Manga), comedy clearly (Disney), even philosophical treatise, (Waking Life). But when it comes to drama, it's hard to reproduce the tension of a face captured on film, with line and pen.
This seemed most evident to me in the scene where the Revolutionary Guard bust a party which Marjane attends, leading to a rooftop chase. In theory, and in the hands of someone like Mungiu, this scene should have been gripping, but in practice it just felt like another mundane episode, with little tension at all.
However, Mungiu would no doubt have edited this story down at script stage. As it stands Persepolis feels like a compendium of stories and history lessons that don't quite hang together, no matter how rich the ingredients.
If only Persepolis has stuck to this brief. The pictures, based on Satrapi's comic strip, are charming. Recent Iranian history is more than fit material for a major animated film. Everything's in place.
Unfortunately all the right ingredients don't make for a compelling film. Part of the problem is that Persepolis is actually the first chapter in Satrapi's autobiography. Autobiography is not the easist subject matter for a film. Good autobiography (eg Proust) rambles, follows blind alleys, has no great need to stick to narrative conventions. The most important moments in a life might have nothing to do with the most dramatic moments. A fascinating life can make for a tedious autobiography, and the dullest of lives might make for the most exciting. From what the film discloses, Satrapi has lead a reasonably interesting life, but except for the Iranian context (and her near run-ins with the revolutionary guard make for the richest material) there's nothing crying out to be documented.
In the manner of autobiography, the narrative does indeed potter around, from Tehran to Vienna and back again, via one or two failed loved affairs and the inevitable family ties. As a book this might not matter, but as a film it lacks structure. Perhaps this relates to the difference between reading and watching, I'm not sure, but no matter how pretty the pictures, if they appear to be telling us a story and then don't, they run the risk of becoming tedious. I also got the feeling that the animation didn't help to develop or sustain tension. It's hard to think of great animated drama, on celluloid at least. Animated action perhaps (Manga), comedy clearly (Disney), even philosophical treatise, (Waking Life). But when it comes to drama, it's hard to reproduce the tension of a face captured on film, with line and pen.
This seemed most evident to me in the scene where the Revolutionary Guard bust a party which Marjane attends, leading to a rooftop chase. In theory, and in the hands of someone like Mungiu, this scene should have been gripping, but in practice it just felt like another mundane episode, with little tension at all.
However, Mungiu would no doubt have edited this story down at script stage. As it stands Persepolis feels like a compendium of stories and history lessons that don't quite hang together, no matter how rich the ingredients.
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