In a time when technology is so advanced that we take it for granted, even the entertainment business cannot be spared of its rapid advance. We have relied so much on technology to convey our interpersonal messages, that it is also taking over the medium of film that we grew up falling in love with. 3-D animation in the movie theaters are getting more common nowadays, and you see one or two of this kind of movie every month these days. Children in the new generation seems to prefer the new 3-D animation, examples being Finding Nemo, Happy Feet and Ice Age, simply because of the kind of depth and vibrance it can achieve in contrast to traditional 2-D animation. Even though it may be considered as an advancement in the world of cinema, I don’t feel that it does the genre any good if you are going to overdo it.
Sometimes, 2-D animations are simply better than 3-D ones. With live action, we have real actors and actresses, and in 2-D everything is just hand drawn a page at a time. Being 3-D just puts the film on the fence, not knowing whether or not to be fake like a cartoon or real like live action. Persepolis is a step back to the roots of animation, and at the same time a step forward as well. By choosing to tell the story in black and white, like the graphic novel it was adapted from, the film not only showed much depth but also a kind of style that was lost ever since 3-D took over.
Persepolis is a poignant and coming-of-age story about Marjane Satrapi, the youngest daughter of an ordinary Iranian family, trying to survive the civil wars within the country itself during the Islamic Revolutions, and then running away from its oppression to get used to the life outside of Iran. Due to the constant oppression of Islamic women and the hunting of political extremists in the country, Marjane’s parents thought it to be unsafe for her to remain in Iran. Only a teenager then, she was sent to Vienna for further educations, and that was where she started learning various different cultures, and how she learned to standup for her rights and her beliefs as she returns to Iran a few years later. In an attempt to document the stories that occurred back home in Teheran, or Persepolis in Greek, Marjane decided to write her story and transform it into a graphic novel with the help of artist Vincent Paronnaud, and then subsequently into this animated film that won the critics over all around the world, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes.
The film’s strict and consistent adherence to the style of the graphic novel is both simple and powerful to look at. The simplicity of it all ensured that the story does not become filtered, and maintained its chokehold on the attention of the audience. By choosing to present the story in this manner as oppose to making this film into a live action movie, it remained faithful to the graphic novel as well as the message of this film. This method of presentation gives the freedom of expressing various scenes that could not have been done otherwise. For example, the scene where Marjane sang to Eye of the Tiger was enjoyable, almost like a musical of sorts. That is not to mention the fantasy-like sequence that involved Marjane imagining her cheating ex-boyfriend as some kind of geek from Hell. As it is the case for most black and white films, the lack of color takes away the possibility of being distracted from the story line, and it becomes easy in a subconscious way to be completely immersed in the story, even if the most of us aren’t going to understand a single word of French.
Despite portraying a political situation that happened in the 1980s, it is not difficult to relate it back to the modern day context. In fact, the resemblance between the war in Iraq can’t be more striking than what we have in this film, being all so relatable to us. The film showed the horrors of war, the consequences it has on the people who dared to stand up for their rights and freedom, and also the loved ones of those brave people that perished in the war. This film is not only an examination on the consequences of war and oppression, but also a cross-cultural in nature as well. This further proves that animations don’t necessarily have to be for children, but also something that adults can draw a message from.
Persepolis is a great success, simply because it handled a heavy and dense topic in a graceful and delightful manner that couldn’t be put across to viewers in a better way. Through the simplicity of the graphics as well as the perspective from an ordinary girl in an ordinary home, the story becomes even more realistic and, in a way, disturbing because of its familiarities. Persepolis is a great and refreshing take on not only the world of animation, and addressed the cultural issues that we face on a day to day basis in a way that not a lot of other films could have done.
