Marjane Satrapi Issue #34

The comix artist animates the Iran revolution with the film version of her award-winning book, Persepolis

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Published: December 1st, 2007 | 2:10pm

In 1978, Iran was a country on the brink of revolution, a transformation welcomed with open arms by most Iranians living under the oppressive rule of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was only in the aftermath of this revolution, as Islamic doctrine became the new rule of thumb, that many realized that this was not necessarily the reformation they had envisaged or wanted. This was a religious revolution, and for anyone without belief it was devastating.

Persepolis — an award-winning graphic novel characterized by contemplative black and white sketches — is illustrator Marjane Satrapi’s personal account of Iran during the revolution. And now, Satrapi has rendered both volumes of these wonderful comics into a feature-length animated film that is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on December 25.

Persepolis tells the story of Satrapi's childhood as a rebellious kid with a love for Iron Maiden and punk rock growing up during the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. It also recounts of her experience assimilating into Viennese culture when her parents sent her to study in Austria at 14. While the story has political elements, it weighs more heavily as a personal narrative. "In this movie we didn't have the pretension of making some statement — we weren't trying to say, ‘This is how the situation is’ or anything like that," she says. "That would be more the work of a preacher, and I hate preachers."

What makes Persepolis so captivating is Satrapi herself. Her wild and funny tales of teenage rebellion remind me of my own, except when I was sneaking out to buy cigarettes and alcohol, Satrapi was sneaking out to buy music tapes and posters. The film is not so much a story about growing up under an oppressive regime as it is a story about how we cope with the limitations of life and country. Whether you’re from Iran, middle America, or rural England, you feel urgency to fight these limitations, even if it is in the littlest of ways.

In transposing Persepolis to film, Satrapi and her partner Vincent Paronnaud had to condense 2,400 pages and more than 600 characters into a 95-minute animation. Many of the quiet, thoughtful moments in the books go by quickly in the film. But details such as when Satrapi’s grandmother hoards flowers in her bra to smell fresh or when her uncle crafts bread swans in prison are reminiscent of the same subtlety that the novel possesses so perfectly. "If you just talk about the hectic moments in a story, then you don't have a story anymore," Satrapi says. "The moments where nothing is happening, where the family is just sitting, they are important too. If you don't include them, it’s not real life anymore. If you are looking for a style, in the end you will find death. If you look for life, you will have a style. Style comes with the search of life."

Life is something the movie has a lot of. It's almost fair to say that Satrapi's family and friends are brought to life even more in the film version. "It's a question of rhythm, it's a question of not simplifying the thing, it's a question of having the most important elements that communicate with your audience," she says.

Considering it's the first film Satrapi has made, she's doing pretty well — in May, she picked up the Jury Prize at Cannes. "I was almost fainting I can tell you," she recalls. "This was my first movie, and it’s all about this Iranian girl — not a sexy subject whatsoever — in black and white animation. There was no reason first of all that we would even be selected in Cannes and then — to win a prize? It was amazing."

Satrapi makes sure her depictions of Iranians are not overtly exotic. "I hate orientalism," she says. "The only orientalism in the movie is in Vienna; we really made it the exotic place on purpose." In fact, Satrapi's comical sketches of Iranian Mullahs (Islamic clergy) are reminiscent of the fundamentalist Christians of backwater America. They are not men created by a culture antithetical to our own — they are characters we recognize in our culture — the only difference being the religion they subscribe to. "It's about time the human being was made the center of interest," she adds.

The French version of Persepolis has already been released in Europe with esteemed actresses Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve voicing Marjane and her mother. The English language version of the film features Iggy Pop, Gina Rowlands, and Sean Penn. When asked why she decided to release an American version of Persepolis, Satrapi says, “There are places in America, and I'm not talking about New York or LA, where people just will not go and see subtitled movies. I think it's even more important to me that these people go and watch the movie because I want them to see this other life in Iran. I want them to know and understand what it's like. If they come out and say, ‘It could have been me’ — that's the only pretension I have."