I remember when I first saw Persepolis. I was around 13 or 14 and I was in the Chambon-Sur-Lignon in France with my familly. The first thing that I was immidiately drawn to, was the style. Being an avid visual-arts fan, I was pulled into by the intricate, yet subtle details of the artwork. Marjane Satrapi definitely was one of those artists that knew how to make every aspect count when presenting her work. The movie was, unlike many of our generation, hand-animated, and though it is not necessary to render the effect she was going for, it makes it more necessary to focus more on every minuscule thing. Her excellence I found did not only lie there, it also was in having found this incredibly sincere and compelling story of a girl living during the Iranian political changes, and her life story. For a long time, I thought that she had made-up the story, but I was abruptly told differently by a sort of Marjane of my own. She was Iranian as well, and had been a familly friend for a very long time.
We had been sitting under a shady tree, tables spread out, chairs comfortably disposed, just talking and taking in the nice summer day, when the topic all of the sudden came onto Persepolis. I immediately said I thought it was a very good movie. With pain in her voice after, our friend started detailing how it resembled her story immensly. As a young girl her familly had demonstrated against the Shah and supported the revolution. When things started going awry, her familly sent her to France to escape prosecution. She stayed as a refugee in the Prep school that my grand-father was the principal of, and stayed until she was older. She went back to Iran for a short while, but like Marjane Satrapi came back to live in France.
She told me that, not only did she feel like Perepolis was a chronicalling of her own story, but that many other Iranian women did as well. They had all felt the pain of separation from the war, and the revolution, and had all come without their famillies for a better life.
I think it's good to know that this scenario is not just a single case, there have been many that have gone through it as well.
That is a great story Sisco. Your assesment of of Satrapi is a very unique one. Although I am not as into visual art as you ar, I agree that the author does a great job of putting subtle detials into her artwork. Her panels do not only contain detials that add to the literary value of the story, but they add a nice flow and satiricle element to the story as well.
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