My Perception of Persepolis

Black and white animation...in a world of Ratatouille's and Shrek's, it's a daunting task to hold one's own in an industry where innovation in animation bears more influence than the storylines themselves. Granted, Ratatouille delivers both visually and as a narrative, but with a budget of $150,000,000 and the power of Pixar, I'd hope so. (Shrek the Third, on the other hand, is open to interpretation.) But as I watched Pixar's newest installment win an he Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, for which it deserved, I took notice of its runner-up, Persepolis.

With a budget of just over $7 million, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi collaborate to create Persepolis, a film adaption of Satrapi's earlier autobiographical graphic novels of the same name. Their combined artistry (Paronnaud previously worked with comics) serves to illustrate a complex story of a young girl living in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. A rebellious and curious youth with an interest in everything from ABBA to Iron Maiden, Marjane comes to terms with her Iranian past, her future in France, and the family that supported her along the way. The choice of black and white brilliantly turns the viewer's attention away from any show of spectacle and toward the simplistic, straightforwardness of Marjane's story, not unlike her inspiring graphic novels.

Why call it Persepolis? According to its official website, it refers to a 6th century BC Persian capital, later destroyed by Alexander the Great. It is meant to represent a complex Iranian culture lying hidden beneath the modern-day simplistic view of fundamentalism and fanaticism. And maybe that's why the use of black and white works so well. It's a simple medium employed to combat a simplistic interpretation of Iranian society. Ratatouille? No, but added depth should count for something.

http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/persepolis/