Persepolis (2007) - Satrapi's sensationally good and very personal animation

♥♥♥♥♥

 

A couple of memorable scenes from the film are teased amid a clutter of honors and names involved on this overly packed poster for Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi grows up with her family in Iran and experiences the Iranian revolution of 1979, goes through childhood, youth, war, a surreal time in Vienna, homecoming and finally adult exile in France.

 

Persepolis is written and directed by great debuting French filmmaker Vincent Paronnaud (Raging Blues (2004, short)) and great debuting Iranian-born French filmmaker Marjane Satrapi (Radioactive (2019)), based on her autobiographical graphic novels Persepolis (2003) and Persepolis 2 (2004). The title is the ancient Greek name for the capital of Persia, today's Iran.

The film is extremely enlightening about the rough times in the horribly repressive Islamic regime in Iran, - something that regrettably hasn't changed dramatically in later decades. With simple, poignant mostly black and white animation and strong voice performances we are led sensitively through Satrapi's coming of age: Infatuations, deaths, music, depression and illness are all natural important elements of the easily relatable journey.

Persepolis is surprisingly funny, - really, really funny! - and it is a vital, very vivid and honest depiction of conservative state Islamism. It ends a bit suddenly, and I'd have enjoyed another 15 minutes about her later life in France, and perhaps about where Iran and the Iranians have come to since.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. €, approximately 7.3 mil. $

Box office: 22.7 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.10 times its cost)

[Persepolis premiered 23 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 96 minutes. 14 companies and support bodies collaborated in the financing and production of the film. It opened #46 to a 37k $ first weekend in 7 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #26 and in 536 theaters (different weeks), grossing 4.4 mil. $ (19.4 % of the total gross). North America was its 2nd biggest market. France was the biggest with 9.4 mil. $ (41.4 %), and UK was the 3rd biggest with 1.8 mil. $ (7.9 %). A government-connected Iranian group protested the film to the Cannes Film Festival, and the Iranian ambassador to Thailand successfully had the film cancelled at the Bangkok International Film Festival. The film was selected as France's Oscar bid of the year and was nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, lost to Ratatouille. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, a Golden Globe, won 2/6 César award nominations, a National Board of Review award, the Jury Prize at Cannes, (the Palme d'Or was lost to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) and was nominated for a European Film award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Paronnaud returned with Villemolle 81 (2009); Satrapi with Chicken with Plums/Poulet aux Prunes (2011), co-directed with Paronnaud. Persepolis is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Persepolis?