Persepolis: Movie About Iranians Who Are Not In Fact Terrorists

I watched Persepolis today, Marjane Satrapi's true story of growing up in war-torn Tehran, Iran in the late 70s into the 80s. I know, I know - what interest might I have in the story of an inevitable terrorist cell? Well I'll say, I wouldn't have had any interest in this film if it had been about your prototypical Iranian terrorist, where they worship Jihad and eat their own babies (that's how the quote unquote Terrorist Story goes, right?). I realized that some terrorists aren't like real terrorists even if they are of terrorist descent, and actually behave the same way all my non terrorist friends do, too! Hell - some of these terrorists who happen to hail from Iran, like Marjane Satrapi, probably aren't even terrorists at all. Maybe they're just the unfortunate ones bearing the brunt of our hatred of terrorists without having terrorized anything at all. Some might argue they've endured more terrorism than US (what?!).



They might be right.

Not enough of the people showing up at Sarah Palin rallies, screaming how Barack Obama's a terrorist because he's a Muslim and has a terrorist name, have seen this movie. Persepolis deftly compiled a portrait of humanity in a digestible 95 minutes, complete with highlights of the importance of family values and necessity of teenage rebellion in unstable settings. Marjane had a strong family for support while she adapted to the wildness of an oppressive government, and she lashed out to better understand herself. Ya know - like American kids.

When I first heard that Persepolis would be made into a movie, I scoffed. I read Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood in a nonfiction workshop in college and it shocked me - the contrast of such adult times through the eyes of an innocent child, accentuated by the comic book narration in a form not unlike Maus I and II. Persepolis felt naturally conformed to the graphic novel, though the sense of immediacy tempted me to consider it happening on film. A film would not allow me to dwell, however, on the emotions aroused in me by Marjane's relationship with her uncle Anoush, for example (for which I needed much time to dwell - I needed to put the book down).

Years later I read the second book, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, and felt it missed the innocence and simplicity that thrived in the first book. Surely, Marjane had become a woman and had different, more complex adult views. I felt the text overwhelmed the powerful imagery, so prevalent before, now languishing in each graphic panel, replaced by political rhetoric and exclamations on coming of age. Persepolis 2 hadn't lost Satrapi's charm, however, and was only slightly disappointing because of the power of its predecessor.

In a roundabout way, the film Persepolis resolved the unevenness I felt from the two books. While the material from the first felt shortened in the movie and the emotions somewhat dampened, the material from the second felt appropriately consolidated into a tone more relatable to the first. Still - I marvel at the first novel and do not feel it could be improved upon in any way. The first chapter in Persepolis, "The Veil," introduced us to a repressed culture to which a Westerner could relate. The girls forced to wear veils and suffer from sameness played with the veils like toys on the playground by the bottom of the first page. Starting the film, however, we're introduced to an adult, contemplative Marjane sitting in an airport as she began reimagining childhood. The latter would be a staple beginning to a coming of age film, yet it didn't have the impact of breaking into a new world like the book. Would the first chapter of the book have better served the opening of the film? Possibly, but my bias is clear. In the film's defense, the recurring imagery of airports in the film elevated the tension of Marji's first parting from her parents for Vienna, as her father carried her faint mother away from the scene of the goodbye.

The reinterpretation of the second book to film allowed the imagery to do more of the narrative work. When Satrapi felt compelled to expound upon her duress in word, it delved too deeply into the mania of young adulthood. The heartache of loss, the betrayal of a first love... film has a wonderful thing called "montage," where the heartbreak can be conveyed quickly and understood without sweating the details in overbearing detail. This helped the second leg of the story. The animation stayed alive and playful amidst the often frightening backdrop Marjane's life - the film's, and story's, strongest achievement.

So that's a highfalutin' way of looking at it (gosh darn it!). But my point is, you can watch this movie and feel like you've experienced something like never before - like you heard a taboo secret, like you were punched in the stomach, like you heard a joke for the first time, like you have a new understanding of freedom, learning that people from "Terroristland Iran" eat, think, breathe and try to raise families under tough circumstances just like we do. Just like I felt after finishing Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood.