Critical Analysis Of Persepolis

The animated film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud is a critical “narrative” type because, by the help of pictures and voices, the author is able to pass information to the audience. The film was released in the year 2007 and the storyline is about four of Satrapi’s autobiographical volume novels which are widely read. The film is named after the book Persepolis and the authors use a girl as the main character to tell a story of contemporary Iran. There were different levels of revolution which rises and take the country when the main character was just nine years and as a result of the revolutionary period, the girl’s parents are involved in demonstrations. In a style of a flashback of the life and the battle of Marjane’s family in three past generations, the author introduces to the audience a history of “dictatorship, oil, dependency, rebellion and revolution, with suppression and more rebellion” (Avakian). From the look of Marjane’s childhood, it is evident that the family members fought against the ruling of the system. They include her grandfather (father to her mother) who was a prince, later became a communist and so also her uncle who had joined the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan was later crushed by the government. Iran arrived at a hostile place and women rights were restricted, in fact the film is a representation of the authors real life, the Revolution and the role of the west to Iran by the use of various stylistic devices like a flashback.

The film come up with some questions which are not necessarily answered in the film about revolution. For example, at some point during the film, a member of Marjane’s family got seriously sick and needed a “heart bypass surgery”. This type of operation was not possible in Iran, so his wife had to request a transfer permit from the hospitals head office. One she arrived at the hospital she finds the new boss where before their revolution he was worked for her building. For the discussion that happened in the past, the boss refuses to give permission for the transfer of the patient, saying that the patient’s destiny “is up to the will of god” (Avakian). At this point it was decided to raise the question of God’s power in the healing of a dying person where even the surgical intervention is useless, creating so a necessity of new leaders which arrived with a revolution. There is a possibility that the boss just had to hide the reason why he doesn’t give the permission, maybe to show his powers to the old boss or to make a payback to something that could happened in the past.

The author has used this type of scene to show to the audience the Islamic Republic Crimes and the role of the West in the people oppression with power. By the author, in this way the audience can understand the role of Britain, for example, the attack that helped to make Shah’s father a leader with the sale of arms by the west countries in Iraq and the war that involved the two countries in Iran. showing the role of the West in Iran, the author has also demonstrated that Iran was not just a Vacuum country (Ebert). Instead, Iran is part of the worldwide distribution system and has also struggled against some global systems.

The style of representation of the film can be said to be simply a really nice art-work, This is because the story has made sure that the important words are put beyond anonymous characters and this helped to pass the intended message to the exact intention without fear. The film has also utilized the simple drawings method just in black and white with grey shadows (Butcher), reducing so also the cost of the production and not lose the time to take and make the full film with live characters. Some analysts think that this was not a smart decision, but the author explained the reason for using the simple hand-drawn saying that, Lines generated by computers are to perfect and this takes the personalities out of the characters, human beings are not perfect, and the lines drawn by hand reflect better their souls. In both of the cases, it is not easy to produce all the pictures that are used in the film and it toke about one-and-half hours for one single picture.

The author has used the main character to bring to light some mental conflicts of her god, saying that she has to turn to her god whenever she is faced by a problem that is not easy to handle or that she cannot easily solve (Satrapi and Paronnaud). Her god idea is a man with white beards sitting on a cloud, the existence of Maryjane’s god brings a need to other people to belive in the existence of god and it is an imagination that Maryjane’s god is sitting on the cloud. The author decided to put Maryjane’s god on a cloud because she had the feels that he is not helpful. For most of the time maybe he is not but at some point, when Marjane and other children follow a boy whose father is believed to be in the Savak, Marjane’s god tells her to not worry for he and to make justice and this was very unexpected

You may need to watch the film because, apart from the authors using many stylistic devices like flashback and questions to present her points, she has also shown the real life that she has passed, like the hardships in Iran and the role of West in the revolution of Iran. The author has shown the revolution effects of an incident where the patient needed to be transferred to another hospital exposing also the role of Britain in Iran to the audience, using hand-drawn pictures helped to present the ideas in a brave method and finally to shown in a critical way the purpose of god in the society.

This girl who emigrated to Europe after Khomeini’s revolution finally returned as a woman to visit her native country for the last time. The type of animation is used to desire the cinematographic transposition of the book that maintains its original qualities. As an adult, Marjane remembers her story in the terminal of an airport where the events are then all told in flash-back, but more importantly, the fact that it is in black and white. This style symbolizes the temporary memory and the real risk that with time is finally forgotten, one of the scenes that catch me most for the style used, was the scene of the chase on the roofs. This story of Marjane who starts from her childhood with a principal role in her family, especially her grandmother where she has always supported and educated the protagonist. Learning in this way the values such as friendship, love but more important the coherence where even in the film is emphasized the phrase “ remain consistent with yourself, especially after the revolutions and the loss of parents and friends of Marjane. During the course of the film, the girl begins to deny her origins and the values of life that they have taught her. This conflict starts a depression and the loss of the faith where decides to recover those at the end, after a particular dream with an interesting use of the piece Eye of the Tiger, taken from Rocky’s soundtrack, which comes to form a real ironic quotation. The strong conflict between comic and tragic elements is always present and it is exactly this that makes this film so interesting, that makes Persepolis an unforgettable film that, by telling the story of an ordinary woman, is able to tell the story of all of us.

References

1. the Film PERSEPOLIS: Avakian, Bob. A Life, a Country, a Crucial Moment. 18 November 2007. WEbsite. 30 September 2019.
2. Butcher, Sally. Persepolis. Pavilion Books, 2016. eBook.
3. Satrapi, M (2007). The Complete Persepolis. New York: Pantheon Books
4. Marjane Satrapi; Vincent Paronnaud;. Dirs. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. 2017. DVD Video.