Persepolis (2007)
Director: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
Starring: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Simon Abkarian
Text: Matt Bochenski
Traditional animation has been put through the ringer in recent years.
Wisdom has it that audiences have been entranced by computer graphics, and don’t care for the hand-drawn artistry of yesteryear. But here comes Marjane Satrapi to prove what a lot of old shit that is.
Persepolis is a 2D, hand-drawn, black-and-white animation brimful of passion, craft and wonder. Based on her own graphic novels, it’s the superbly evocative story of ‘Marji’ through whose eyes we watch the Iranian revolution of 1979 disintegrate into the repression of an Islamic republic.
Intelligent and instructive, Persepolis embarrasses the notion – so deep rooted in the West – that animation belongs to the ghetto of family entertainment.
