I primi cambiamenti del corpo, le paranoie, i complessi, le prese in giro...Ma c'è qualcuno che si è mai sentito bello da adolescente?

Io,poi, ero un caso clinico: occhiali, apparecchio e brufoli. In più detestavo la mia prima  perchè secondo me mi impediva la visuale. E il naso che mi sembrava quello di un tucano.

Mi consolo con Marjane Satrapi da Persepolis. Favolosa.

By Marjane Satrapi

Barry Gewen writes

Elsewhere, the Iranian news website Payvand notes that Satrapi's next film will be a live-action adaptation of Chicken with Plums, to be produced again in collaboration with Paronnaud. Pantheon plans a softcover edition of that book for 2009 publication.

Anyway, my day began rather surprisingly with awaking before Noon.  Odd, I agree given both my penchant for staying awake into the wee hours of the morning and working a night shift, but these things happen from time to time and usually for a reason.  It appears the cosmic forces guiding our steps realized me and my family required a little time to ourselves in nearby Troy, and so it roused me from Dreamland at a manageable hour, for "normal people" anyway.

At once, my beloved wife suggested we set off to town for a meal, a trip to Walgreens, and some ice cream at a new Cold Stone Creamery knockoff which opened recently.  So, pulling ourselves from the various things we were busy doing, we all freshened up a bit and darted off out the door.  Even my wonderful daughter tagged along deciding it was, in fact, okay to be seen in public with her parents.  I can only assume the combined efforts of my budding Feng Shui mastery and perfect planetary alignment led to this fantastical affair transpiring in such fashion.

Our dining experience pleasant, the Walgreens quest successful, and our frozen desires satiated, we soon retreated back to the desolate isolation only a country dirt road can provide.  While we weren't out on the town for very long, the fact we spent a little time together makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, which I suppose is a true testament to the force of our familial bond as we'd recently devoured dairy treats which were really fucking cold.  Anyway, we had fun...

Also, after returning to the Bat Cave, I felt that twinge only the watching of a good film can rectify.  And so, I sped away to the nearest service station and came away with Persepolis. (Sad, isn't it?  Renting movies from a gas station.  The only bonus is whomever stocks their shelves places, by mistake or no, a few Independent films on occasion.) The cover lept out at me the moment I saw it, and after a bit of research, I decided its images must flood into my brain as soon as humanly possible.  So, I rented it.  It was not a waste of money.

The film is based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, and she actually co-directed this adaptation which makes me all warm and fuzzy again.  I just hate it whenever a novelist/writer/whatever hands over their work for another's interpretation.  Well, hate is a strong word, as it is their work, not mine, and who am I to judge what they do with their own creations.  Anyway, let's just say I really love it whenever I see an author directly involved in the film version of their works.  I'm getting off point, though.  Surprised?

Want a little more information?  Well, allow me to quote directly from the Wikipedia article linked above:

The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, which goes horribly wrong with Islamic fundamentalists taking power and creating a new theocratic tyranny themselves; the story ends with Marjane as a 21-year-old expatriate. The title is a reference to the historic city of Persepolis.

How can you not be intrigued by that?  And if you aren't, then feel free to rent anything recently starring Martin Lawrence or animated singing farm animals...

Also, this movie reminded me of my dear friend, Sarah, whom I've missed playing comment-tag with over at Myspace.  Not sure what her opinion of it would be, or even if she's seen/heard of it, but it's of no matter.  Isn't it odd how some things can be connected with others without really being connected?  Eventually, I'll post an updated photo of myself showing off my now-shorter locks.  It's a private joke...

And anyway, see the movie.  It's brilliant...

Tomorrow my work week begins yet again, and it appears my dear Shithouse is actually going to be getting worse.  Funny, eh?  Eventually, it's simply going to collapse upon itself with each and every moronic git dashing to and fro screaming atop their lungs about the falling sky.  I hope I'm long gone by then though.  While I enjoy watching idiots bounce off one another nothing can replace finding more stable, and higher paying, employment.  Thankfully there's something in the works.  We shall see...

Now, exhale.  Isn't that better?

Mas vamos por pontos.

Primeiro, nunca gostei muito do cinema francês. Sempre o achei mais artístico que divertido. Não me interpretem mal, eu gosto bastante de inovações na arte, mas se poderem ser acompanhadas de elementos de diversão prefiro muito mais. Normalmente não sou homem que gosto de ver um filme que não corresponda aos meus gostos, e que me entedie. Ora, normalmente o cinema francês é assim. Quero dizer, gostei bastante de "Os Cavaleiros do Apocalipse", "Ad Vitam" e do melhor dos filmes do Asterix, mas normalmente tendo a evitar qualquer filme em que se fale francês.

Segundo. Sei que não deveria sentir isto, uma vez que estudo Antropologia, mas, como bem sei, sou um cidadão do meu país e do meu tempo, como tal estou sujeito às deturpações e às imagens transmitidas pelos media. E também a companhias com opiniões muito pouco subtis. Sinceramente nunca tive muita simpatia pelos povos do médio oriente, ou pela religião Islâmica. Não me quero desculpar aqui, sei que não deveria ter este tipo de opiniões. Mas tinha...

O caso é que recentemente acabei por ver transformadas estas duas opiniões. Por causa de um só filme e, creio que é justo dizê-lo, por causa de uma só pessoa.

Estava num dos intervalos do meu emprego, quando decidi ir dar um passeio na FNAC, uma loja que vende um pouco de tudo que seja arte, videojogos, filmes, livros... Quando vi em exibição um filme de animação a preto e branco, com uma animação simples mas um jogo de sombras fantástico. E era em francês. Pensei para mim que era mais um daqueles idiotas filmes artísticos franceses, e resolvi aproximar-me para gozar um pouco. Fiquei ali uma hora e só me fui embora porque já eram horas de ir trabalhar. E não gozei sequer um segundo com aquilo. Fiquei agarrado ao filme, fiquei apaixonado pela personagem principal, fiquei num êxtase de compreensão de todo um povo e de mim mesmo.

O filme chama-se Persépolis, e foi o filme que mais deu que falar na entrega dos prémios Óscar de 2007, na categoria de animação. Não ganhou o prémio, pois, como se sabe, os valores comerciais entram primeiro nestas coisas. A animação é simples, mas funcional, como as sequências da actualidade a cores e as sequências do passado, a maior parte do filme, a preto e branco. De um modo delicado, traduz os sentimentos tão eficientemente, que somos arrastados para a história, e sentimos na pele a alegria e tristeza, a maravilha e a dúvida, a diversão e a decepção...

Segue a história verdadeira da juventude de Marjane Satrapi, uma rapariga iraniana, que vive, na sua infância, a revolução que derrubou o Xá do Irão, e trouxe a teocracia que actualmente governa, assim como a inútil guerra com o Iraque. Na sua adolescência viveu os loucos anos 80 na Áustria. E, na sua juventude adulta, viveu o formato actual da teocracia iraniana. Uma das coisas que me atraiu foi mesmo este fantástico enquadramento histórico, que acompanha eventos que já conhecia, mas cujos detalhes me escapavam. O problema da informação de perspectiva predominantemente ocidental.

A  jovem Marjane é uma pessoa fantástica, fortemente influenciada pelos seus educados pais e por uma avó que ainda conheceu o domínio inglês do território. Cresce como uma jovem iraniana independente e de personalidade forte. Um pouco o contrário daquilo que o mainstream ocidental acredita em relação às mulheres daquelas zonas...

E a vida dela, de facto, deu um filme...

Como disse Stephen Colbert, corremos o risco de começar a ver os iranianos como seres humanos ao ver este filme. Ele foi algo criticado pelo seu sarcasmo, mas eu compreendo perfeitamente o que ele disse, pois é o que eu sinto. Vemos as festas ilegais que as pessoas fazem para se divertir e escapar, nem que seja por uns minutos, à repressão. Vemos  os jovens a comprar filmes e música ocidental no mercado negro. Vemos as raparigas a fazerem olhinhos aos rapazes, não obstante a repressão religiosa. Vemos pessoas a tentarem, simplesmente, ser pessoas. Eu vejo tantos paralelos com o que vivemos aqui em Portugal durante o Estado Novo que fiquei mesmo naquela do "como pude ser tão cego?" As pessoas são iguais em todo o lado. Apenas o contexto muda...

Aconselho este filme a toda a gente. Merece e deve ser visto. Mudou a minha perspectiva, talvez muda a de tantos outros. É agora um dos meus filmes preferidos.

Obrigado, Marjane Satrapi, por partilhares o teu mundo com todos nós.

Pelos vistos, uma só pessoa pode mesmo mudar o mundo. Ou, pelo menos, parte dele.

E agora, para quem viu o filme:

Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

Vosso, S7alker.

Yesterday Barry Gewen over at Paper Cuts recommended that the millions of people who hadn't seen Persepolis yet should watch it now that it's out on DVD. Persepolis, for those of you who don't know (and if you're not all that interested in graphic novels/memoirs then I'll grant that somehow, some way you don't), is an animated movie based on the graphic memoir written by Marjane Satrapi. I have yet to read the book (and I really, really should), but Gewen reminded me that I in fact had the Blockbuster DVD currently sitting on my television. What is it with me and stuff I always have laying around? My apartment is full of unfulfilled intentions it seems. Oy, don't get me started.

In any case, since the DVD was due back two days ago (no late fees is a wonderful thing) and since Gewen so nicely ordered me to, I sat down with my dinner and got to business. What can I say - it was...awesome, amazing, brilliant, tragic, funny, and touching. I am now convinced that this movie deserved a whole lot more attention than it got. And, hey I liked Ratatouille, but like Gewen, though I know that it had absolutely no chance really, Persepolis should have won that Academy.

Unlike Ratatouille, this movie isn't even remotely for kids. Persepolis is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic fundamentalists' rise to power, and the Iraq-Iranian War. The political assassinations, the bombings, and the tragedy isn't your regular kiddie fare. But I'll be darned if it wasn't funny. The dialogue is witty and Satrapi, as a rebellious Iranian teenager who listens to hard rock, wears pink tennis shoes with her burka, and a Michael Jackson pin on her bag is immensely fun to watch and incredibly easy to relate to.

When I wasn't being impressed with the dialogue and the progression of the story, I was being blown away just how good an animated movie can look in black and white. At first I was a bit worried that the black and white would make the film at least look dull. As the movie progressed, however, I went from not being bothered by it to actively liking it. Never again shall I underestimate just how many shades of gray lie between black and white, and never again shall I underestimate their power to impress not just on the page but the silver screen.

I loved Persepolis. It is definitely becoming a part of my permanent DVD collection. And just as soon as my personal ban on book shopping is over, I'll be adding the memoir to my library as well.

In keeping with flat two-dimensional format, the images are distilled into black and white with all shades of grey in between. The textured backgrounds, varied styles and an eye for details -the dancing puppet, the curl of cigarette smoke, falling jasmine petals all breathe life into this coming of age story amid the backdrop of a Islamic revolution in Iran.

As a child we see a feisty little Marjane practicing her Bruce-Lee moves and reciting commandments as a 'future prophet' to her progressive politically-minded parents and equally no-nonsense head-strong grandmother. With the fall of the Shah regime and the repressive regime that follows, Marjane and her family experience not only curbed personal freedoms but see first hand the repercussions of political restrictions. A moving scene with her imprisoned Uncle Anoosh reveals how this young girl has to deal with issues of injustice and a changing political landscape.

Growing into adolescence she seeks the delights of western contrabands – a Micheal Jackson lapel pin, a 'Punk is not Ded' leather jacket and heavy metal. Fearing that her headstrong ways would land her into jail or worse, her parents send her off to Vienna. Here we see her adrift, disconnected from her Western counterparts and nursing heartbreak. We follow her back to Iran where things have gone from bad to worse.

The film is exceptionally brilliant at pointing out the absurd restrictions of the regime – woman prohibited from running, a fully clothed model for a 'life drawing class'-which gain greater poignancy in scenes where a party turns fatal and young boys are promised paradise in return for martyrdom on the battle field.

With the bracketing of the film with scenes of an expatriate Marjane at the airport longing to return, it captures a sentiment familiar to all Iranians – nostalgia for their homeland but the inability to live there. As a film, Persepolis treats you to a heady mix of warmth, humour, and an interweaving of memoir, history and fantasy. Most of all it shows you how people have no choice but to get on with life even in the most repressive circumstances, and that they continue living without losing a sense of self.

While I applaud the film for its sensitive portrayal and well told personal story enmeshing the political, I was left feeling a little uneasy. Where was the lyrical cadence of Farsi? The peppering of every phrase with an endearing jaan? There might have been logistical reasons (the film was funded by and made in France where Satrapi now lives), but even so, it created a distance. It was only the few scenes of Farsi writings that placed you back into that landscape.

And while Iranian repression (as well as those in other Islamic states) is a twisted interpretation of Islam, I couldn't help but feel a little dread that this film would only add to the simplistic understanding of Islam equals bad and West equals good.

I understand what Morgenstern is saying, but I agree with the whole "give animation its own category" philosophy that most animation people embrace. Animation CAN compete with live-action, but shouldn't be forced to.

I love animation, but I love it because it represents a different vision of the world than traditional "photo shot" film. To force animation to compete against live-action in the first leg of any Oscar race is like an art contest in which oil paintings and photos are grouped together in the same category. I even question forcing its soundtrack to compete against live-action soundtracks -- again, it's a whole different thought process for all elements in an animated film than for a live-action one.

Now, if an animated film happens to also break away and trump all films from a particular year -- as WALL.E has so far -- I think only THEN they should go to the next hurdle of Best Picture.

By JOE MORGENSTERN
Great animation deserves shot at Best Picture
July 12, 2008; Page W4

As each movie season unfolds, I try to concentrate on the horses, not the race -- on individual films and their special qualities, rather than their chances for winning Oscars, or any of the other awards that come to dominate (and distort) our outlook toward the end of every year. And we're only at the midpoint of a season that is shaping up slowly, to say the least. In a piece that Variety published last week under the headline "Late Arrivals," Timothy M. Gray wrote: "The past six months have offered fewer potential contenders than any January-June period in memory." Still, one entry is a horse of a different color -- Pixar's "WALL-E" -- and my concern is whether it's running on the right track.

If the pattern of the past seven years prevails, "WALL-E" will be nominated for the Best Animated Feature category; if justice prevails, it will win. But "WALL-E" isn't just an animated feature; it's a great motion picture by any measure, and has already been hailed as such -- by critics who've called it a masterpiece (I'm one of them), by audiences who watch it in a state of enthrallment (which is one notch up from enchantment). In keeping with its singular distinction, Pixar's latest gift to movie lovers should be a candidate for the most prestigious award, Best Picture, when Oscar time rolls around. And the time to start the drumbeat is now, because the path to that nomination is strewn with prickly practicalities and marked by timeworn doubts.

The Best Animated Feature category is only seven years old. It was created, in 2001, for the unassailable purpose of advancing the animation arts, and one can argue that its creation was overdue, given the ambiguous status of feature-length cartoons in Hollywood's grand scheme of things. (Only one animated feature, "Beauty and the Beast," has ever been nominated for Best Picture, and that was in 1991.) But one can also argue, with the more persuasive wisdom of hindsight, that its creation proved oddly ill-timed, even though the category's first winner, DreamWorks's "Shrek," was a worthy one. By 2001 the last great surge of Disney animation was over (like "Beauty and the Beast," such films as "Aladdin," "The Lion King" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" were products of the 1990s.) And by 2001, the leading practitioners of feature animation -- especially computer animation -- had already embarked on a veritable prison break from restrictive old forms.

That was mainly due to Pixar, whose string of popular and artistic triumphs began with "Toy Story" in 1995. The studio's subsequent successes are well-known: they include "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc.," and three films that won Best Animated Feature Oscars in 2003, 2004 and 2007: "Finding Nemo," which was directed by Andrew Stanton, who also directed "WALL-E," and "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille," both of which were directed by Brad Bird.

There's nothing to be said against these films (except, perhaps, that they're so good as to constitute unfair competition). But Pixar doesn't have a lock on animated excellence. Let's not forget "The Iron Giant," the 1999 film that put Brad Bird on the map (and sent him to Pixar), or Hayao Miyazaki's gorgeous 2002 Oscar winner "Spirited Away" (I'll discuss several other Miyazaki films separately), or such out-of-the-box phenomena as Sylvain Chomet's "The Triplets of Belleville," Satoshi Kon's anime phantasmagoria "Paprika" and the sharply satiric "Persepolis," which was co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi and has recently been released on DVD.

In truth, the art of feature animation has grown so dramatically in recent years that it doesn't need a nice, cozy category of its own. That growth was clear to me when I put together my 10-best list for 2004 and named "The Incredibles" the best movie of the year -- not the best animated movie, but the best of the best, which it was. Yet it's equally clear that the Best Animated Feature category is not going to go away. "Quite the opposite," I was told earlier this week by Sid Ganis, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "We and our animation branch love the category. It's embraced and welcomed by everyone. But the important thing to be said here is that all systems are always go for any animated movie to be nominated as best picture."

To that I say, right on, and to Disney, which now owns Pixar, I say, when the time comes, do the right thing -- put "WALL-E" up for the Best Picture nomination it so richly deserves. To be sure, the strategy entails risk. While a Best Animated Feature nomination would almost certainly bring a Best Animated Feature Oscar -- I mean no disrespect to other contenders, it's just that "WALL-E" is playing its own game by its own rules -- a bid for Best Picture might not end in Academy-sanctioned victory. But a champion mustn't be kept from competing with other champions. Such a dazzling light shouldn't be hidden beneath a splintering bushel.

Maybe you didn't hear about Persepolis, though, and are wondering what makes it "for adults." Well, Persepolis is based on a graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The (autobiographical) story follows Marjane from childhood, through school in Austria, all the way into her adult life. Children are more than welcome to watch Persepolis (it's rated PG-13) but what makes this a film geared towards adults is just that most children won't care and/or understand the storyline and political themes. I don't think a lot of kids would be interested in seeing how the revolution affects Marjane and her loved ones. Everything she knew as normal behavior before is no longer allowed. There are a few parts that children might be able to connect with, such as the things Marjane is forbidden form doing (holding a boy's hand, listening to rock music, even from wearing sneakers) but for the most part, Persepolis is concerned with more adult things like revolution and martyrdom.

If the goal of Persepolis was to be mostly unbiased account of one girl's experience, then it succeeded. Even though events were shown entirely through Marjane's eyes, we're still able to see that even "bad guys" aren't all bad. No one is ever shown as a one-sided monster. At one point, when a few young guards are going to search the Satrapi family's home for alcohol, Marjane's grandmother tries to slip up ahead of everyone to throw away all of the booze, using the excuse that she has diabetes and she needs her medicine. One of the guards says to another, "Yeah, my Mom has that" and they let her pass through. Of course the guard has orders to confiscate any alcohol, but when his own family is brought to mind, he becomes sympathetic, as I think most people would. And by doing so, it's not a matter of not doing his job, he's just being human.

I very much enjoyed Persepolis, but I can't, however, say that it was without fault. My major problem with it was it's storyline and flow. There was hardly a scene that actually stood on it's own. Everything seemed to be leading to something else. I understand that the story followed Marjane through her chaotic life while she was constantly being uprooted, but that didn't make for an especially smooth or interesting movie. It wasn't boring, by any means, but I kept waiting for something. So many things were happening but nothing ever solidified. It almost felt like the whole movie was a montage. Now, not having read the graphic novel, I can't say whether or not this is accurate to the original story. Perhaps the story worked much better in it's original book form and lost something in translation to film. But regardless of how the story flowed in the book, I still feel as though the film was lacking a proper flow and that bothered me.

Persepolis was definitely an enjoyable film. It's nice to watch something different, and this certainly fits the bill. Also, it was a decent history lesson for me. I liked the animation style; it was very fitting of it's source material. And even though it was pretty serious in theme (revolutions are never to be taken lightly), it was still able to keep you laughing, mostly through Marjane's wonderful and somewhat naive observations on life. While I can't say Persepolis is a movie for everybody, it's definitely one that plenty of people can enjoy. As long as you don't mind a black and white animated movie with subtitles.

We were so eager for happiness, we forgot we weren’t free.

That’s one of the more poignant lines from Marjane Satrapi’s beautiful film, Persepolis - adapted from her graphic novel of the same name.  It tells the story of Satrapi’s own life: her childhood in Tehran, the overthrow of the Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the turmoil of the eight-year war with Iraq.  Especially powerful are her portraits of her grandmother and an executed uncle, and the frank, mesmerizing sequences that lead us through her student years in Vienna and subsequent (temporary) return to life under the ayatollahs. 

After Persepolis itself, my wife and I watched the “making-of” documentary also included on the DVD, which delves into the rather old-fashioned techniques used to such rewarding effect in the film.  Entirely drawn and inked by hand, the months of detailed labor behind Persepolis was once par for the course for animated features, but in the era of CGI requires a special devotion to craft that is vanishingly rare.  The robust, magical, shadow-theater quality of the final product is worth every hour poured into it.

Satrapi herself comments on the decision not to use computer-generated imagery.  The trouble with CGI, she suggests, is its absolute precision, and hence its inhumanity.  That sounds about right.  By their very nature, computer-generated images are the product of mathematical perfections alien to the human eye and hand.  I recently heard a Pixar director describe how in order to create a CGI image which will be received as true-to-life one has to engineer the illusion of dirt and flaws.  With traditional animation, on the other hand, one may strive for perfection in line and form as ardently as one wants without fear of actually achieving it, and the results are immediately received as true and familiarly human. 

A CGI movie may tell an inspiring story, then, and it may be a technical feat, but it can never be art in the same sense that a film like Persepolis can.  The greatest achievements of art are necessarily imperfect.  In fact, their imperfection is inseparable from their greatness.  The American poet Robert Lowell arrived at the same basic idea when he declared that “imperfection is the language of art” – by which he meant true and truly human art. 

Whether bequeathed us by swooning Greeks or as a side-effect of progress in science and technology, there is a mathematical idea of perfection at work in culture today which we're frequently tempted to admire for the wrong reasons or apply in the wrong cases.  We are so eager for perfection, you might say, we forget that we ourselves are imperfectible.  This misunderstanding is one of the more irksome and self-defeating pathologies of modern man.  Geometry, after all, may deliver us the distance of a star and chart out the recesses of space, but will never map the abyss of the heart.

Som figur var det lite kul att läsa att Ett hem utan böcker valde lord Peter Wimsey, som jag önskade mig till W. Jag tvekar mellan Pippi och Harry Potter, båda är livsviktiga.

Trodde först inte att jag ens skulle komma på någon bok på P, men det lönar sig alltid att läsa andras tankar, för hos Avantgardet blev jag påmind om Persepolis som är en helt fantastisk grafisk självbiografi, som nu också finns på film och dvd. Båda är mycket bra.

1. The Girl in the Café (Dir. David Yates)

Why Did You Pick That?

Two reasons: It's been in my queue for over a year. 2. Bill Nighy.

2. My Blueberry Nights (Dir. Kar Wai Wong)

Why Did You Pick That?

The preview and the cast sold me.

3. Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud / Marjane Satrapi)

Why Did You Pick That?

I'll watch any animated film that challenges Pixar at the Academy Awards. And  I've been wanting to see more different animation styles.

2007.  Rated PG-13.  France.  Out on DVD.  Written and Directed by Marjane Satrapi & Vicent Paronnaud.  Based on the graphic novels by Satrapi.  With the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian, Gabrielle Lopes & Francois Jerosme.

.

Persepolis, which scored an Oscar nomination last year for Best Animated Feature, is a French film about an Iranian girl, Marjane Satrapi and her life growing up in Tehran, and later Vienna.  It stirred some controversy when the current Iranian government protested its showing at the Cannes film festival, but the furor died down a bit, I think, when people realized it's not a particularly controversial film.  Sure, it criticizes some past governmental actions and shows the downsides of a repressive society, but it's more a film about the character and her experiences.

The story, told in a series of vignettes, is essentially broken into three parts, beginning with Marjane's childhood, the second her adolescence and the third her young adulthood.  The first, covers her childhood during the revolution and then the Iran/Iraq war, is a lot more plot-driven and although it's fairly interesting from a historical point of view, Marjane is just so brutally annoying as a child.  Kudos to her for showing herself in an unflattering light, but it was definitely a distraction to an otherwise strong segment.

The second focuses on a more universal theme of Marjane going through adolescence not knowing where exactly she fit in.  It focuses on her relationships, both with her friends and her first loves, and this was when I found her most interesting as a character.  The third segment covers her young adulthood, and was probably the weakest of the three.  A sequence set to "eye of the tiger" absolutely did not work, and none of the film's strongest vignettes were featured in this time period, which kind of led the story to go out with a whimper.

As far as the look goes, my first thought about the animation style was, "this is like a graphic novel come to life," and then, of course, after watching it and reading about it, I realized it was indeed based on a series of graphic novels by Satrapi.  The majority of the film is in black and white,  with small snippets in color and the visuals, though simple by Pixar standards, are definitely nice to look at.

There are some strong moments, and it's certainly an interesting and unique film, especially to an American audience, but parts of it just did not hold my attention well.  Yes, I know it's a memoir, and ostensibly it is staying true to her life and not making it a Hollywood version, but I did not find her character very compelling nor did she show much development.  I realize not every movie needs to involve the main character learning or growing, but the nature of a movie made up of vignettes without a really strong arc is that some will be hits and some will be misses.

It is worth seeing, if only because it tells a story pretty foreign to most people and does so with nice visuals in a mostly interesting way.  It also gives an authentic look into a country whose relations with ours will only grow more important, and humanizes its people - for that alone, it is a worthwhile endeavor.

Grade: B

.

If you liked this article, please subscribe to my blog, using the RSS feed or subscribe via e-mail using FeedBlitz or RSSFWD.

Stumble It!

.

<<HOME

Emission diffusée le vendredi 27 juin 2008
Rediffusée le samedi 28 juin 2008 (écouter ici)

Actualité

- La Fête du cinéma du 29 juin au 1 juillet 2008

- Française est le premier long métrage de Souad El Bouhati qui avait réalisé un court un peu long : Salaam

- L'été le geek ne supporte pas le soleil, il va voir : Narnia 2, Le Journal des morts, La Mouche (ressortie), Balls of Fury, Mad Max (ressortie), Wanted, L'incroyable Hulk, Wall-E, et surtout The Dark Knight...

- Le Nouvel Hollywood de Peter Biskind - Point Seuil

- le blog Zines scane des pages de vieilles revues de cinéma, de vieilles pubs, et des tas de choses pour les fondus de fantastique, de SF, d'érotisme...

- Le FIRN (festival international du roman noir à Frontignan)

- Valse avec bashir d'Ari Folman

Fin de saison

Les animateurs, les invités, les copains des Voyeurs évoquent les films, les séries, les choses bizarres qu'ils aiment

- Les-films-que-y'a-que-Michel-qui-les-a-vus : Fin de règne de Gérard Guerriéri

- Le Prisonnier série créée par George Markstein et Patrick McGoohan
- Volver de Pedro Almodovar
- Persepolis de Marjane Satrapi

- The Big Lebowski des frères Cohen
- Trois enterrements de Tommy Lee Jones
- Videodrome de David Cronenberg
- Velvet Goldmine de Todd Haynes
- Lawrence d'Arabie de David Lean
- Elephant Man de David Lynch

La B.O. de la semaine

Furia a bahia pour OSS 117, musique de Michel Magne

Extraits

Le Bonheur a encore frappé
Le Prisonnier
The Big Lebowski
Phantom of Paradise

Musique

P.I.L. - "This is not a love song"

rendez-vous en septembre, et d'ici là, c'est vous qui voyez...

I bought this book when I was holidaying in Macau with some friends. Will post photos of that trip later. Anyway, we went with the intention of shopping and eating, at least I did. In the end, we did eat a lot, but the shopping wasn't as great as I had expected. We did take the ferry to Hong Kong for more shopping and eating. That's when my friend brought me to this bookshop, one of those second storey shops. Now bookshops in HK or Macau are really not my thing. My friends spent hours in this bookshop in Zhu Hai (China), near Macau. It was horrible for me mainly because I don't read Chinese books. It's not worth the trouble. By which I mean my Chinese is so bad it would take far too much time to read. I would say my Chinese is as bad as my Japanese. In any case, the books here are in the traditional script, which makes it even harder for me.

But back to the bookshop on the second storey in Hong Kong. It stocks English books! I was elated to say the least. Something for me to browse, yeah! In fact, the English book selection here is actually pretty good and the prices are really reasonable. So I had a mini shopping spree there. Since I couldn't find clothes interesting enough for me to part with my money. One of the books I bought there was this one - Persepolis.

I heard about this graphic novel because of the movie that was coming out. Thought that it would be interesting to read the book. I'm that kind of person - I usually prefer to read the book first before watching the movie. Except for some books - like the Lord of the Rings which I didn't get a chance to read before watching.

Back to the book, it's actually really funny. I actually finished reading this quite some time ago (right after the trip), so I'm basically reviewing based on my memory.

I've never read a graphic novel before. In fact, before they were make into movies, I've never heard of the term "graphic novel". I've heard of comics -I grew up on a heathly diet of Archie and Judgehead and Lao Fu Zi (Old Master Q). But I've never been into Marvel Comics, which probably explains my not being exposed to the term. In any case, Persepolis is an interesting read.

The frames are all done in black and white, unlike what I'm used to in Archie, but that's okay. The story and themes seem to go well with the plain monochrome tone. Or is it the other way round? Anyway, I like the humourous way that Marjane Satrapi has brought out the serious issues concerning her hometown.

The Middle East, and Persia in particular, is a mysterious place to me. It's intriguing and from some books I've seen, absolutely beautiful. But also forbidden. In the sense that it is not a safe place for a Christian woman to travel to. Alone, which is usually how I travel (with the exception being this Macau/HK/Zhu Hai trip). So books open the door for me to get into the culture and mores for the region. In fact, Persepolis is not the first book about Persia that I've read. Many years ago, when I was in a Middle-Eastern phase (I was really interested in Islam and considered reading the Qur'an), I read quite a number of books. If I remember correctly, one was about English girls forced into arranged marriages by their Muslim father. A couple were by this Saudi princess about her decandent life as a filthy rich in the Arabian desert. Two which stood out for me were Daughter of Persia and Not Without My Daughter.

Title: Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Republic (1992)
Author: Sattareh Farman Farmaian

Title: Not Without My Daughter (1991)
Author: Betty Mahmoody

Oh yah, back to the book. It's kind of a Bildungsroman where the author shows her growth psychological and socially from a young girl living in Iran to her days studying in Austria to her homecoming to Iran, her marriage and divorce and eventual move to France.

The POV for each stage of her life are related to that particular stage, so the innocence and naïvety of youth is felt during her recount of her childhood where the things she say are shocking for the adults, but so typical of children in the sense that they are true but so very un-PC (politically correct). In the later stages, you get the sense of cynicism from someone who has seen and done it all, having gone through so much. In between, there's also the sense of lost she felt when she was studying in Austria. So the whole gamut of emotions is present.

I guess I am drawn to books that explore the sense of identity in individuals as they try to decipher their place in the world. In a way, it kind of reflects my own inner struggles and I feel this connection with such kindred souls, if I may call them that. That is why I like Asian American literature (I'm not saying this one is lah).

After reading the book (which is actually a collection of 2), I don't feel the need to watch the movie anymore. Well, actually, I did try to watch it online, but I fell asleep halfway and gave up. Not that it's boring or what, but I guess the book is great enough. I don't need the frames to be animated and all that. So in the end, reading still beats passive watching, couch-potato-style.

Can't find the book now. Must have lent it to someone. Need to keep track of my books...

Persepolis, the French animated film by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud (adapted from Satrapi's graphic novels of the same name) hit DVD on June 24. If you like comics, you have to see this movie. If you like animated films, you have to see this movie. If you like cinema at all — if you want to see something unique, challenging, gorgeous, and human — put Persepolis in your queue.

I reviewed the film back in January when it was in theaters (actually, probably just one: The Bijou) and I'm reposting my full Persepolis review after the jump. I still feel the same way about as I did six months ago.

---------------------------------------------

It’s a good time to be a comic-book fan and movie lover.

There was a time when adapting comics for the big screen was seen as a form of dumpster-diving. But things have changed in bookstores and movie theaters alike; both are now in the firm, Galactus-like grip of comics (graphic novels, if you must). Of course, many of the more affecting adaptations (A History of Violence, Road to Perdition) hide their four-color heritage, and for every Ghost World, there’s a Ghost Rider, but ... OK, so it’s a best of times, worst of times kind of thing.

While the visual vocabulary of comics has been successfully translated in films like Sin City and 300, there’s always been something lacking in comics adaptations: real human feeling. (Let’s face it: Sin City has the emotional depth of a sheet of paper.)

However, Persepolis, adapted from Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir of the same name, is a stunning victory on all counts. The film is incredibly faithful to the novel’s narrative and tone (Satrapi co-wrote and co-directed the film with Vincent Parronaud), and the decision to animate Satrapi’s signature black-and-white line art is a masterstroke that lets us experience her view of Iran in a way that live-action couldn’t have.

Satrapi begins her story as a precocious, intelligent 9-year-old living with her progressive parents in Tehran. Convinced she will be a prophet (she fantasizes conversations with both God and Karl Marx), the young Satrapi is swept up by the romance of revolution while her country is in the midst of the real thing.

When the Shah’s dictatorship gives way to the fundamentalist Islamic Revolution — dashing her family’s hopes for a democratic government — the free-thinking Satrapi is suddenly forced to wear a head scarf and flog herself for “the martyrs.” The Iraq-Iran war further turns her family’s world upside-down, and as she enters pre-adolescence, Satrapi’s desire to express herself consistently threatens her safety. (On a journey to buy bootleg Iron Maiden cassettes, she narrowly escapes being detained for sporting a “PUNK IS NOT DED” jacket, complete with Michael Jackson badge. “It’s Malcolm X,” she tells the irate women.) Fearful for their daughter’s life, her parents arrange for her to go to school in Vienna. Satrapi’s journey into womanhood begins there, as she finds herself torn between her new, exciting Western life and the guilt of leaving her family behind.

Persepolis is full of gut-wrenching moments — Satrapi doesn’t shy away from the death and destruction she encountered virtually every day in Iran — but the most affecting scenes come between Satrapi and her family, fighting to live a normal life and struggling to say goodbye. Satrapi’s love for her family, particularly her wise, independent grandmother, is palpable in every frame of this film.

Despite the backdrop of war and intolerance, Satrapi’s coming-of-age story is more personal than political — and ultimately, universal. Every triumph and every setback feels like our own, and by the end we know all we need to know about Iran and its people: They’re a lot like us.

Visually arresting, funny, harrowing, and always honest, Persepolis is undoubtedly among the aforementioned best of times.

I just finished reading the two Persepolis books, Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel about growing up in Iran and Vienna. They're incredible--informative, funny, true, beautifully drawn. I haven't seen the movie yet, but that's next.

I learned so much about Iran (in large part because prior to reading it, I knew fuck-all about Iran). It's amazing how we've been conditioned to think of other countries, particularly Middle Eastern countries, as these massive blocks of population with goals concurrent with those of their governments. I didn't even know that Iran wasn't culturally Arab. I suppose if Cheney and co. had their druthers, we'd all think that Iraq and Iran were the same country. Probably a lot of people do.

I found this Salon interview with Satrapi, from 2005. She has some really amazing things to say about Iran, America, religious fundamentalism, sexual liberation, women's rights, government, life... She says that in Iran--unlike in conservative America--sex, divorce, and abortions aren't considered sins. I could go on, but it's better if you just read the interview. Some things that stood out for me:

On religious fundamentalist governments: They are the same! The secular people, we have no country. We the people -- all the secular people who are looking for freedom -- we have to keep together. We are international, as they [the fanatics of all religions] are international.

On coping with the Islamic revolution: Suddenly there's this really big change and nobody was expecting it. Talking and laughing was the only way to survive. Either we had to laugh or we had to die.

On how fear has changed us: First, people have stopped talking about pleasure. Eating is a pleasure, but they will tell you if you eat you're going to get high cholesterol. If you make love, you're going to get AIDS. If you smoke, you're going to get cancer. But smoking is a pleasure -- I'm a smoker, I can testify. Eating is a pleasure. Making love is a pleasure. OK, it's a risk sometimes.

The fact is, the world is very fearful, because we don't know who the enemy is. The world is at war, but at war against who? Bin Laden turns into Saddam and Saddam turns into someone else. They all the time talk about security. Security, security, security. But when you talk about security, then everything is about being safe. And being safe also means having less freedom.

It makes a society much more conservative, looking for security. If you have freedom, then you have more risks. It goes together. Myself, I prefer to take some risks, and once in a while it's going to hurt. My grandmother always said the saddest life is to be born a cow and to die a donkey. That means you are born stupid, and you're going to die even more stupid.

In your life you have to experience things; you have to see things. What is the interest of life if you're always scared and you don't see anyone and don't go anywhere? What is the point in living? Just eating and shitting and making money?

On democracy: Democracy, contrary to what they try to tell us, it's not a paper that you hang on the wall and then you have a democracy. Democracy is a social evolution. It is something cultural. Iranians, they have become much more secular, and they are ready for democracy, but they have to fight themselves for democracy, and the only thing that other countries can do is to understand their fight and help them in their fight.

On the US: For the people who think that America will come and liberate them, I invite them to read the history and see what America has done. I'm not talking about American people. I'm in love with American people. I love going to the United States of America. I've been for several book tours; I've come for vacation with my husband. For me it's an amazing country. I love the enthusiasm of Americans ... I love the pop art, I love the American cinema, there are so many things that I love about America! I love Coca-Cola, you know?

My criticism is not towards America -- it's towards the American government, which to me are two different things. The America that I know is not represented by George W. Bush.

On combatting fundamentalism: If I have any advice, it's that every day that you wake up, don't say, "This is normal." Every day, wake up with this idea that you have to defend your freedom. Nobody has the right to take from women the right to abortion, nobody has the right to take from homosexuals the right to be homosexual, nobody has the right to stop people laughing, to stop people thinking, to stop people talking.

If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me.

Autobiography has become the life blood of mid-ground comic books. Sometimes the lives recalled are woven into the fabric of dramatic and horrific events of global historical importance, sometimes the events described are decidedly quotidian. In American Splendor (Vertigo, 2008 ) – which often immortalises lives of no particular consequence other than the fact that they are being lived by human beings – author Harvey Pekar rants, ““I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life I’m not proud of but at least…” and then lists such non-acts as “never got high and shot my wife in the head” and “never conned my country into a needless war to boost my ego”.

It was while reading Persepolis (Jonathan Cape, 2006) – Marjane Satrapi’s collected autobiographical tales of life in and in self imposed exile from Iran - that I suddenly realised my own life was probably going to be best evaluated by what I haven’t done. I haven’t tortured a man with a burning hot iron, or hung a woman or cut another human being into pieces. Neither have I, as Satrapi has, had a friend die during a roof top flight from armed militia nor had one’s dress sense publicly questioned by guardians of the Islamic Cultural Revolution.

On the other hand, I do remember confronting school teachers as a child much as Satrapi did. Once, my French teacher asked a young French boy to read a passage from our class text book. We were then asked to applaud him. I refused on the grounds that, of course he read the text fluently, he was French. Later labelled by the teacher as part of the “desert” of children who were slow learners, I argued that if I could understand French I wouldn’t need to be taught it and that was the teacher’s job.

Transfer such behaviour from a Welsh private school and place it in an Iranian state school during the Islamic revolution and such middle-class precociousness takes on a distinctly political edge. Satrapi’s conflicts with her teachers focus on: being taught revisionist history that seeks to forget the past, the impossibility of taking life drawing classes without looking at the male model and the Islamic fundamentalist dress codes that are hypocritically imposed more strictly for women than for men.

In her introduction to Persepolis, Satrapi gives readers a brief history of Iran. It takes us from the second millennium B.C. and the founding of the Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C. through successive invasions by Arabs, Turks and Mongolian invaders to, in one mighty bound, the Twentieth Century and Britain’s post World War Two support for the Shah..

One effect of Satrapi’s introduction is to make it seem as if Iranian history has authored Satrapi’s life, or at least given it its significance. However, I would argue that the influence is the other way round and that it is Satrapi who has taken Iran’s history and has actively made the past significant from the point of view of the here and now. But then Satrapi is influenced by dialectical materialism and I’m influenced by Phenomenological/Hegelian Marxism so I would say that [of course you would! - ED].

Persepolis is explicitly about memory. Satrapi herself offers Persepolis as a public memorial to commemorate the lives lost in that history., “I don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten”.

But, ultimately, an autobiography is about the person writing it. As social historian Carolyn Steedman has written (Past Tenses) “In the autobiography, or in the telling of a life story in a pub…the person there, leaning up against the bar, or in another place, writing a book, is the embodiment of something completed …a human being.” Such forms of recollection can therefore be seen as a process of gathering together again the fragments of a life and turning them into a narrative with the self as protagonist and product.

Much of Persepolis is about Satrapi becoming a young woman and coming to terms with how that h
is defined for her, by Islamic fundamentalism and patriarchy and by herself. In doing so, her story stands as an example of a process that a German feminist collective have called ‘female sexualization’ (Haug et al, 1987). In part, this is the socialization of women into an identity with sexuality as it defining core. For Satrapi this requires her to overcome the norms and strictures of her Iranian up bringing. So, at a party in Vienna, she is turned off by public displays of affection and is horrified when she over hears cries of pleasure coming from her host’s bedroom- “My God, they were in the middle of……having sex!”. Next day, she finds the sight of the man in his underpants is embarrassing and comical.

Female sexualization also involves adopting ‘body techniques’ by which women attend to the training, manipulation and grooming of their bodies so that their ‘inherent’ sexuality is made visible to others. For Satrapi this process is complicated by her country’s fundamentalism which prescribes what is and is not acceptable for a woman. Satrapi details the ways in which wearing make-up becomes not an act of oppression as it would be seen by feminists at the time in the West but an act of resistance. She criticises one group of Iranian women for looking “like the heroines of American TV series, ready to get married at the drop of a hat” but then, on reflection, realises “that making themselves up and wanting to follow western ways was an act of resistance on their part.”

Inevitably, much of Satrapi’s account focuses on wearing the veil. Slight differences in the way the veil is worn become signs of resistance. Individuals also become skilled in interpreting a woman’s body beneath the veil from the way the garment hangs. So a bump at the back of a head scarf signals that a woman has a pony tail underneath. One Mullah at college even allows Satrapi to redesign the veil to fit the fashion for long, wide trousers.

Female sexualisation also involves women coming to see and evaluate themselves from the perspective of men. I imagine the feminist collective being appalled at Satrapi’s vision of a liberated self. After a page of leg waxing, hair plucking, a perm and applying make up Satrapi flirtatiously presents herself to us as “a sophisticated woman”. However, this is partly the result of the way the norms of femininity in the West, however patriarchal, act as a source of resistance to the norms of Islamic fundamentalist culture for Satrapi and her women friends.

Although the fundamentalist regime has rules governing men’s appearance, it is clear that the focus of the regime’s attention is the regulation of women’s sexuality. At a lecture on ‘Moral and Religious Conduct’, the young Satrapi stands up and confronts this hypocrisy. “Why,” she asks, “ is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two inches less of my head scarf?”

For the German feminist collective memory plays a key role in the subordination of women. Women’s memories, they argue, have been colonized by patriarchal ideology. One effect of this is to forge a unity between a woman’s present, subordinate self and their childhood past by creating a false chain of cause and effect and papering over the cracks and contradictions of the life course. The collective challenge this by showing how past memories of conflict and resistance to male power can be recovered by collectively shared remembering.

Satrapi’s personal account certainly traces continuities with her childhood self. But her recollections are precisely about conflicts, crisis and personal questioning. Satrapi represents herself as critically reflective. As a child she questions all forms of authority, including God. Where she doesn’t understand situations she turns to reading Karl Marx in cartoon form and Simone De Beauvoir. She also listens to her family’s stories of political oppression and observes how they are treated.

However, there is a powerful infantilization of Satrapi’s identity at work in Persepolis. The first book (‘The Story of a Childhood’) focuses directly on Satrapi as a child but even the second volume ‘The Story of a Return’ signals a return to her childhood land. The movie makes this infantilization even more explicit. Although told in flashback while the adult Satrapi is at Orly airport, the end credits feature a snippet of dialogue between her childhood self and her grandmother. Satrapi is ever the daughter, ever the grandchild.

Satrapi’s illustrative style is also childlike, as if Studios Herge had decided to reproduce the adventures of Tintin as a series of wood block prints. Satrapi is also the author of children’s books and, at times, she casts herself as a shy child watching the adult world of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll as if it were a gang of big kids in a playground. Her dilemma is: should she join in, stand and watch or simply run away?

But this infantilization can also be seen as an ideological position. As Erving Goffman pointed out long ago in Gender Advertisements (1976) our culture often represents women as children even in the way women pose for photographs.

On one page Satrapi contrasts a group shot of her friends’ veiled public persona with their ‘fashionable’ westernized private appearance. In the public drawing one of the veiled women adopts the canted stance that Goffman sees as typical of women’s public display of submission to male authority. Although canting is a natural gesture of subordination, evidenced in the behaviour of dogs, it is human nature to invest such gestures with complex meanings.

Goffman argues that images like this are ritualised displays of that represent social norms, in particular alignments of power relations between men, women and children. Such displays dramatize alignments of power as physical alignments of, for instance, body position, between individuals of different status. Goffman calls such ritual displays in advertising ‘mock-ups’ and exploits the different meanings of the word ‘mock’ in his analysis.

To mock is a humorous act of ridicule. Women adopting this canted position in advertisements are doing so playfully. There is a humour here, evidenced by the women’s flirtatious smiles. However, mock ups are also simplified prototypes or models of behaviour to be enacted later. Like mock exams they are preparations for the real thing. Mock canting is preparatory to situations where subordination ceases to be a game.

Of course the figure of the child has often been evoked in fairy tails (The Emperor’s New Clothes) and in cultural politics (Walter Benjamin) as a position from which society can be criticised and opposed. But to criticize a political system a child would have to be particularly knowing. Satrapi might argue that she was as a child, although she humorously recaptures the rampant egotism of small children-as a child she imagines herself to be the last prophet of God and vows to banish pain from the world. Children are also powerless. While adopting the position of a child gives Satrapi critical purchase there is also little sense that she is actually empowered.

At the end of the day, we are left with an image of Satrapi dressed in black sitting and smoking. Her austere clothing part a sign of her place as an internationalized intellectual and part an Iran ex-patriot forever exiled from her homeland.

If there is one area that she does feel able to make a change then it is in her chosen life as a cartoonist. One of Satrapi’s stated aims is to challenge the way Iran, in her words, “this old and great civilization” is represented in public and discussed “mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism and terrorism.” In this, I am not sure she entirely succeeds.

Comic books have joined military intelligence reports and package holidays as one of the main ways in which those of us in the West come to know foreign lands, their history and people. Certainly, Satrapi puts a human-or cartoon face on actual Iranians an important counterpoint to the howling mobs usually seen on newsreels. Most of the people we come to know and care for in her story are her friends and family. In part, Satrapi wants her book to be a memorial as much as a memoir.

Persepolis therefore carries a self imposed burden of representation and reviewers quoted on the back cover emphasise its pedagogical role. “Persepolis will teach you more about Iran….than you could learn from a thousand hours of television documentaries and newspaper articles” writes Mike Haddon while Natasha Walter of the Independent on Sunday adds that the book condenses “a whole country’s tragedy into one poignant, funny scene after another.”

Certainly, within Persepolis’s pages, we meet individuals recognisable as human beings who appear to be just like us. In particular we meet Satrapi herself who is identifiable because, in a sense, many of her personal experiences are shared by us all: her childhood imaginings of possessing god-like powers (she imagines herself being the last prophet), her defiance of school teachers, her naughty behaviour (Satrapi owns up to having been a bit of a bully at times) and her adolescent experiences of growing pains, experiments with drugs and sex and painful decisions along the path to adulthood.

However, the autobiographical form constrains as much as it enables. Carolyn Steedman has usefully discussed the tensions between history and autobiography as ways of knowing the past. For Steedman, history is an empirical activity of checking records, triangulating data, cross referencing facts. History lies often unknowable beyond the life of the historian.

In contrast, autobiographies are phenomenological in that their contents – the people we read about, the events that occur- are granted existence and meaning by a writer’s consciousness and their use of narrative conventions from the point of view of the ‘here and now’. In Persepolis, Satrapi does give life to the Iran of her past but those granted individuality tend to be her family and friends.

The difficulty is that torturers, fundamentalists and soldiers opposing armies undoubtedly have personal stories too as difficult as it is to think of a father, for instance, branding and killing a human being by day and then going home to his family at night. Here the various fundamentalist regimes appear, as they must have appeared to Satrapi herself, as anonymous albeit not entirely faceless representatives of an oppressive regime. The effect of this is to reinforce dominant Western representations of Iran as a land in the grip of a totalitarian regime supported by a fundamentalist mass rather than to challenge them.

Satrapi’s point of view is also a class position. She makes no secret of and takes pleasure in her location among an Iranian savant guard intelligencia with links to royalty. Her resistance against the Iranian regime is therefore class inflected and we learn that Islamic Fundamentalism is supported mainly by the working and peasant classes of Iran, here represented largely as a shadowy mob.

Satrapi’s identification with her fellow countrymen is imagined (as opposed to imaginary) and I feel uneasy about the equivalence that she draws between her own personal fate – forced to leave her family- and the fate of those political activist who are killed standing up for their beliefs or who die as agents in or casualties of war. While Satrapi’s own life puts a human face on Iran it can’t stand for all Iranians.

Although Satrapi details the lives of those who resist successive regimes, it is clear that the regimes’ ideologies permeate every aspect of life, regulating the kinds of behaviour deemed appropriate in public and private. The truth on offer here is that fundamentalism; fanaticism and terrorism have pervaded Satrapi’s life and structure her personal narrative. Despite herself, Satrapi’s story paints a picture of everyday life in Iran that exactly conforms to expectations in the West.

Now that Persepolis has been made into a movie (on general release in the UK at time of writing) it may be hoped that Satrapi’s story will get wider exposure. Unfortunately the showing I went to could optimistically be described as half full except it was almost entirely empty. Of course I saw Persepolis on a blazing hot summer’s day in Brighton, Britain’s premier weekend holiday destination where families would rather be anywhere than inside.

The local Odeon has the hardest seating I have ever experienced in a cinema but they provided, in the manner of church pews and school benches, an appropriately austere position from which to view the film. Persepolis has been feited by film critics but often, I suspect, because they compare it with the offerings of Pixar and Disney.

There are some notably successful moments. The look of the film develops Satrapi’s black and white comic book drawings into dramatic chiaroscuro effects. And, when the young Satrapi’s father tells her how the British installed the Shah as an emperor, the events are played out as a kind of shadow puppet play. A scene where Satrapi is interrogated by the women’s branch of the guardians of the Islamic revolution has her tormentors veiled bodies writhe like black serpents.

Elsewhere, moments of comedy are doodled around the fairly sombre proceedings as the animation team attempt to inject the joy de vive that seems natural to animation. -through a window we glimpse Satrapi covered in soapsuds from washing dishes, her landlady’s already grotesque dog takes a joyful pee in the street etc. But these moments are few and far between and the film has the worthy, slightly pedagogical feel of one of S4C’s Animated Shakespeare shorts.

As I left the cinema an enthusiastic usher asked me if the film was good as it looked “unusual”, but I couldn’t bite my tongue and advised them to read the comic book instead.

7. Maus, Art Spiegelman

The story of The Holocaust and the experiences of one family that survived it.  Spiegelman famously used animal heads on human bodies to portray the players: Jews are mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs, Americans are dogs, Frenchmen are frogs, and Swedes are reindeer.  Spiegelman was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Maus in 1992.

13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Without Watchmen, there probably would be no such thing as a graphic novel.  Moore and Gibbons' masterwork, originally published as twelve single issues in 1986-1987, is set in an alternate 1985, in which costumed heroes are real and the Doomsday Clock is set at five minutes to midnight. Some familiarity with superhero archetypes is helpful for a full appreciation of the story, which nominally tells the tale of heroes without superpowers (with one glaringly notable exception), dealing with human failings, neuroses and ethical dilemmas.  A film version of Watchmen, directed by Zack Snyder, is due to be released in March 2009.  It will probably suck.

37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

Drawing inevitable comparisons to Maus, Marjane Satrapi's simple black-and-white panels are a heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  The two volumes depict the author's experiences from age six to fourteen, a time which saw the overthrow of the Shah, the rise of the Islamic Revolution and war with Iraq.  Persepolis was recently released as an animated film, written and directed by Satrapi, with voices in the original by Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux and Simon Abkarian.  In the US, the film was dubbed into English, and included Sean Penn, Iggy Pop and Gena Rowlands (in addition to Deneuve and Mastroianni).

46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman

With all due respect to Watchmen, I personally prefer Sandman.  Neil Gaiman's 75-issue series, published by DC imprint Vertigo from 1989-1996, focuses on Morpheus, King of Dreams, and (to a lesser extent) his siblings that make up The Endless.  Gaiman summarizes the plot as "The Lord of Dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision."  The best part of Sandman (in addition to Dave McKean's great covers) was the wide-ranging exploration of mythology the series made possible, which Gaiman would return to in prose novels like American Gods.  Sandman is available in ten individual trade paperback editions, or the four-volume Absolute Sandman series, the final volume of which is to be released this November.  Although there has long been talk of a Sandman film, the closest we're likely to get is a version of Death: The High Cost of Living, a 1993 three-issue miniseries focusing on Morpheus' older sister, to be written and directed by Gaiman with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer.

There are other great graphic novels, of course (Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan and Planetary are personal favorites), but that's a good list.

This film is different and has a freshness to it. The animation is mostly in black and white and has a distinct simplistic style that grabs your attention.

It is an interesting coming of age account, of a young strong willed girl in the backdrop of the the Iranian Revolution, of life in Iran under the Mullah Theocracy, of a young teen and a and a free spirited rebel, born in a communist leaning straight talking passionate modernist family, and finally of the bond between grandmother and granddaughter.

It also shows how her family's hopes for change were slowly dashed as the Islamic fundamentalists took power, drastically curtailing personal liberties, forcing head coverings on women and imprisoning thousands; and of the suffocation and frustrations of intelligent people under that conformist regime.

It also talks about her starkly opposite life in the west as an adolescent teenager in Europe and also about how the Europeans take democracy for granted among other things, of love and betrayal and of a girl growing into a woman.

The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival^[1] and was released in France and Belgium on June 27. In her acceptance speech, Satrapi said "Although this film is universal, I wish to dedicate the prize to all Iranians."^[2] The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Details Peresepolis (french) ( with english subs ) (and other languages)

Imdb rating 8.1, Wikilink

My rating 8/10, This movie is worth a watch, especially for family viewing, women and Older Teens.

 Last week the group met to talk about the book they had just been reading: The Favoured Child (1) by Philippa Gregory. This the second book in the Wideacre trilogy and is set in 18th century Sussex. Two children are being raised in the Dower House. They have equal claim to the inheritance of Wideacre, but only one can inherit the estate. Though this is the second in the series, the group felt that it wasn’t necessary to know what had happened in the previous book to enjoy this one. The book provoked a lively discussion. One group member said she preferred the books by Philippa Gregory which were based on fact, as the purely fictional titles always seemed to contain a supernatural element. Some criticisms of the novel were that fantasy and the real world were sometimes confused, the story was a little far fetched at times and, to quote one group member, “it didn’t paint a picture”. Another reader felt that there was too much padding and that the story was a little drawn out. Other comments were that some characters were stereotyped and that it didn’t encourage the reader to read the other two books in the trilogy. Oh dear! – but I think most of them enjoyed the book to a greater or lesser extent.

Throughout the meeting, they were constantly mentioning other books that they had read and were recommending them to others. They are a very friendly and enthusiastic bunch of people. I’d like to thank the group for allowing me to eavesdrop on their discussions: I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

A bestseller or two

I’ve been browsing through some of the bestseller lists this week – there are several categories, hardback fiction, paperback, non-fiction etc – and as well as the titles which you would expect to find there, such as Delia Smith and Alexander McCall Smith, three caught my eye.

The first is a Philip Pullman novel, which is a kind of spin-off from the His Dark Materials trilogy. Once Upon a Time in the North (2) is the tale of the first meeting between Lee Scoresby and the Arctic bear Iorek Byrnisson. It is currently No 7 in Waterstone’s paperback bestsellers.

The next is something quite different: Persepolis I & II (3) by Marjane Satrapi is a memoir of growing up in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution. It’s told in comic strip format and is No 3 in Bertram’s Library Services fiction list.

Finally Bill Bryson has a place in both Bertram’s non-fiction list (No 5) and Waterstone’s hardback list (No 6) with Shakespeare (4). This is a short biography which “brims with the author’s inimitable wit and intelligence”.

Just one more thing – I featured the latest James Bond novel Devil May Care the other week. Well, for those with loads of money to spend (or, if you like, throw away), Penguin have brought out a hand stitched edition with a burnt oak leather binding containing a pewter toy Bentley car. If you’d like one, tough: I gather that all 100 copies at £750 each have sold out.

1 The Favoured Child by Philippa Gregory HarperCollins £7.99  978-0006514626

2 Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman  David Fickling Books £9.99 9780385615235

3 Persepoliss I and II by Marjane Satrapi  Vintage £7.99 978-0099523994

4 Shakespeare by Bill Bryson  HarperPerennial  £7.99  978-0007197903

I mentioned in my review of Iran Awakening that I had read Persepolis recently. Sunday morning the house was quiet with my boyfriend and the kids...uuuh, cats still sleeping. I decided to use this time to write some reviews, starting with Persepolis. Well, let's just say I didn't get much writing done: I ended up reading the entire book again from cover to cover. And enjoying it as much as I did the first time.

Persepolis is the author's story of growing up in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s. It is not just any memoir, though, as the author tells her story in the form of a graphic novel. As an aside, I dislike the term graphic novel a lot, because it sounds like porn. And that is not what it is at all. Are there any alternative names for this genre of books? Well, apart from comics, which doesn't sit well with me either, but for completely different reasons.

Late last year, Persepolis was made into an animated movie. I haven't seen it, but would love to. If you have seen the movie: I'd love to hear your opinion.

Satrapi grows up in an intellectual, fairly liberal family in Tehran. Her great grandfather was one of the country's rulers in the early twentieth century, before he fell into disgrace when the first Shah came to power. Satrapi recounts what it was like to be a child before and during the Iranian Revolution (Satrapi was nine years old in 1979), not understanding everything that she hears or that happens around her. As the Islamic Republic takes shape and with it the restrictions on the lives of women, Satrapi has to find a way to combine the values that her parents and grandmother instilled in her at home with the extremely conservative and female-unfriendly world outside. Young Marjane also has to learn to keep her outspokenness in check; she has a tendency to fail miserably in this, which makes for some hilarious, absurd and sometimes heartbreaking situations.

The drawings are fairly sober, black and white. But they are not boring or monotonous, there is a lot to see in te drawings. The artwork and the text belong together, they complement each other. Satrapi tells her story in an honest and direct way, not shying away from difficult topics and taboos, but at the same time with lots of humor and perspective. She is not afraid to show her own mistakes and "failures": her drug use and living on the streets in Austria, her attempt to save her own ass by having an innocent bystander arrested, her failed marriage after her return to Iran.

Of course, a large part of the story is very specific to Iran, but it is not just a story of a girl growing up in (pre-)revolutionary Iran, it is a story of a girl growing up. Period. Many topics will be recognizable for any woman who was once a teenager: loneliness, trying to fit in, relationships, uncertainty, thinking you're not pretty enough, etc.

Persepolis is a wonderful book that will make you laugh out loud and think deeply at the same time. I am pretty sure it will end up high on my list of favorite books of 2008. If you are one of the two people left who hasn't read Persepolis, please get hold of a copy and read it. If you have never read any graphic novels and think it is just for kids, forget all your previous notions, pick up a copy and read.

This was the first graphic novel that I read (apart from the comics when I was young), and I'd love to read more. The same bookshop where I bought Persepolis also has a copy of Art Spiegelman's Maus II. Unfortunately, they don't have the first part, so I will leave it at the bookshop for now.

You can read other bookbloggers' opinions on Persepolis here:
Dewey (the hidden side of a leaf: here and here
Bethany (B&b Ex Libris)
Rebecca Reads: here and here

If you reviewed this book as well, but your link isn't in the list, please leave a comment or send me an email with the link to your review so I can add it.