Persepolis Goes From Life to Drawing and Back Again

Movie adaptations of graphic novels often revolve around superheroes performing amazing feats. With their focus on visuals and storytelling, comic books are ideally suited to the silver screen. In the company of movies like Sin City and V for Vendetta, Persepolis—the story of a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution—stands apart. Originally a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis most resembles Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book about concentration camps during World War II. Retelling turbulent history through cartoons may seem strange, but the medium is especially effective for Persepolis, which tells its story almost entirely from a child’s point of view.

Thanks to this juvenile perspective, Persepolis’ account of the Islamic Revolution references Bruce Lee before the history of Iran, which is conveniently narrated by an older, wiser uncle. At first, the bloody history unfolds through whimsical cartoons—the West, characterized as a funny man mangling the French accent, is portrayed especially wittily—but as the child grows older and the film progresses, Persepolis begins to strike notes of tragedy. The point of view, though, remains childlike, with only the most dramatic portions of history—bombed buildings, sirens sounding during school—being noticed by the young girl. For this kid, stories about torture inspire new playground games. She cannot fully grasp the emotions of war.

Persepolis, however, is a very emotional experience. The filmmakers move beyond the deficiencies of a young narrator by subtly portraying adults who float just beyond the girl’s limited understanding. When a jubilant child marches around the room, happily wishing death upon the Shah, the adults huddle nervously in a corner. The audience empathizes with the adults, despite the girl’s cartoonish exploits. She mispronounces “communist” as only a nine-year-old would, before hilariously contorting her face as only a cartoon character could. But the film quietly hints at reality: communists are being executed. This delicate balance between childhood and adulthood, between cartoons and real life, continues throughout the movie.

Compared to the graphic novel, the film adaptation of Persepolis only occasionally feels redundant. Particularly striking images—clearly copied directly from the comic book—often hold the screen for a few moments, the only cinematic addition being a slow fade into darkness. The animation is simple and direct: a battlefield has plenty of swirling dust, but all held eerily still as in a frozen comic book, a slow relentless tank forming the only line of motion across the screen. Moreover, the high quality of the voice-over (including Catherine Deneuve) brings an entirely new level of verbal wit and comedy (not to mention the carefully chosen soundtrack, including tunes like “Eye of the Tiger”). Only rarely does the adaptation fail, such as the character of God—literally a long-bearded man in the sky—who only appears in passing in the film, rather than developing into the thought-provoking character of the book.

With its brutal depiction of the Islamic Revolution, Persepolis has drawn ire from the Iranian government—an advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dubbed the film “anti-Iranian” and “Islamophobic.” These complaints make sense. In this cartoon version of (literally) black and white history, nuance is replaced by shocking and creative images—such as veiled women, whose arms and legs disappear into bulky clothes, turning Iranian women into snakes with human heads. Additionally, Marjane Satrapi lived abroad while growing up—her perspective is self-admittedly foreign to both Western audiences and Iranians themselves. The confused identity of this film—told in the French language, distributed in the West, narrating the experience of an Iranian girl living in Vienna—may not represent any substantial demographic. It may alienate and confuse just about everyone. Still, this breadth of perspective makes for a compelling story, admirably difficult to reconcile with life as we—or as the Iranian people—know it.