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Friday 18 July 2008

Too black and white

Persepolis
12A, London and key cities

Persepolis, an animated feature about coming of age in Iran, is kind of interesting and is kind of original but its telling moments are told so often it’s like going out to dinner and being served the same course over and over. You’ll look at it coming and think, ‘Oh, no, not that again.’ Actually, this is not entirely true, and possibly unfair. There are some delicious, intensely enjoyable morsels to be had here and there, plus it probably features the best Iranian grandma you’ll see in an animated film about Iran this year. In fact, I’d bet my life on it. But it’s a simple story, simply told, and while we are all for simple stories simply told it can feel as if you’re being repeatedly beaten round the head by a Ladybird book on the Islamic Revolution.

This is a film by and about Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian who now lives in France and whose memoirs, written in the graphic-novel form, became best-sellers. She has adapted her own work here, and also directs along with Vincent Paronnaud, and it’s all told in that crude, monochrome style so reminiscent of Czech animations of the Sixties, not that I’ve ever seen any Czech animations from the Sixties, or have any knowledge of them whatsoever, but you get my drift, I think.

Anyway, this particular style, which may or may not have been so beloved of the Czechs in the Sixties — and which makes women in burkas look as if they are being sucked into black holes — is childlike but also brilliantly clever. It’s as abstract as it is generic and so makes Persepolis feel as if it isn’t just another film about distant lands and people who don’t look like us. Also, it allows us to slip easily into the world of Marjane, who is seven when we first meet her and as precocious as she is defiant. She wears Adidas trainers and is into Bruce Lee and communism (‘Down with the Shah’) and, later, Western music as sold on cassette by shady loiterers in the manner of drug dealers: ‘Hey, you wanna buy some Iron Maiden?’

More articles from: Deborah Ross | this section

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