Persepolis (12A)

This is an animated version of Satrapi's graphic novels, which like the film detail her own life.   And an interesting and illuminating story it is in terms of giving us a first hand account of one Iranian woman's experience.  

As a child Marjane experiences an almost Western style childhood in Tehran in the last days of the Shah's rule, though under the ever present shadow of his secret police.  After the initial euphoria of the Shah's expulsion, the veil literally falls on Marjane's gender, though rebel that she is, she manages to outsmart the "social guardians" and their puritanical restrictive rules and discover punk music.   But with the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war and the bombs falling on Tehran, she is sent to school in Austria, where she experiences first love and comes up against Western attitudes to Islam.   Sick of exile she returns to her family and enrols in art school, where the "nude" life models are modestly and frustratingly totally covered with heavy drapery, as dictated by the state.   Ultimately though she realises she can no longer live in her homeland and leaves for France, where this film was made. 

Apart from the interest of the story what makes this film special is the animation, which is glorious.   In black and white apart from a touch of colour in France at the beginning and end, the drawing is lively, rich, original and very evocative of the story's settings.   Particularly delightful is Satrapi's treatment of Iranian art and architecture in some exotic historical flashbacks and there is one particularly memorable image of a wodge of solid black, which turns out to be a crowd of veiled female faces.   Her characters too are beautifully drawn and full of life and despite the weight of the story, the film also demonstrates a sharp, ironic humour.   Made in both French and English versions, the partly bi-lingual voice cast features Mastroianni, daughter of Marcello and Deneuve as Marjane, with Deneuve herself playing Marjane's mother and in the English version Penn as her father and Gena Rowlands as her worldly wise grandmother.