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Dir. Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi
Rating: 6.9 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
Let's get this part over with quickly: Yes, the film is animated, based on Marjane Satrapi's excellent graphic novels, but this is hardly kids' fare. Satrapi, who grew up with progressive parents in pre-revolutionary Iran, wrote (and drew) her autobiographical novels as a way of connecting her past with the fate of her highly-oppressed country, and as a way of remembering those relatives and friends who weren't as lucky as she to get out in time. The film, which uses much of Satrapi's art directly from her novels, condenses the two separate volumes into one extremely powerful story. We begin with young Marjane (as child, voiced by Gabrielle Lopes) in the late '70s, a feisty, politically-minded kid whose hero is Bruce Lee and who speaks with God on a regular basis. Her parents (voiced by Simon Abkarian and Catherine Deneuve) are at first overjoyed at the Shah's ouster, but then, after the Ayatollahs take control, they suddenly fear for their daughter's well-being. The film then charts Marjane's travels, first to Vienna for school, then, after a disastrous teen romance, back to Iran to finish her schooling, before finally leaving for good in the early '90s. Throughout, the film has larger things on its mind then simple coming-of-age homilies: The Iranian people are represented, just as longing and nervously hopeful as the rest of us. Like Art Spiegelman's "Maus," Satrapi conjures tremendous emotional power with her simple, clean, black and white line drawings. You feel young Marjane's pain when her beloved Uncle Anouche (François Jerosme) is imprisoned, or when she is forced to leave her parents -- and everything she knows -- behind in a Tehran airport. Still, the film is not so polemic and gloomy that it has no humor, including a riotous montage of Marjane getting her strength and soul back together to the goofy backbeat of "Eye of the Tiger." For all the regime's demonizing of the West, it's amusing to see even our cheesiest exports finding their way into the hearts of the world's young.
Interestingly, the disc offers the original French (with English subtitles) version, or one English-dubbed, if you don't like reading while you watch. There are also commentaries, "making of" pieces and a recording of a Q and A session with the cast and crew at the Cannes festival.
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