Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl in
Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious
and outspoken nine year old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed
as fundamentalists take power - forcing the veil on women and imprisoning
thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the "social guardians"
and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly
executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war, the
daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable.
As she gets older, Marjane's boldness causes her parents to worry
over her continued safety. And so, at age fourteen, they make the
difficult decision to send her to school in Austria. Vulnerable and
alone in a strange land, she endures the typical ordeals of a teenager.
In addition,
Marjane has to combat being equated with the religious fundamentalism
and extremism she fled her country to escape. Over time, she gains
acceptance, and even experiences love, but after high school she finds
herself alone and horribly homesick.
Though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society,
Marjane decides to return to Iran to be close to her family. After
a difficult period of adjustment, she enters art school and marries,
all the while continuing to speak out against the hypocrisy she witnesses.
At age 24, she realizes that while she is deeply Iranian, she cannot
live in Iran. She then makes the heartbreaking decision to leave her
homeland for France, optimistic about her future, shaped indelibly
by her past.
Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels Persepolis: the Story
of a Childhood
(Pantheon, 2003, English version) and Persepolis 2: the Story of a
Return
(Pantheon, 2004, English version) won widespread acclaim in France,
now
her home, and around the world. Now, she has co-directed, with Vincent
Paronnaud, the animated film version of her memoir.
The title PERSEPOLIS comes from the Persian capital founded in the
6th century BC by Darius I, later destroyed by Alexander the Great.
It's a reminder that there's an old and grand civilization, besieged
by waves of invaders but carrying on through milennia, that is much
deeper and more complex than the current-day view of Iran as a monoculture
of fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism.
"I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the
wrongdoings of a few extremists," Satrapi says. "I also
don't want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending
freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various
repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and
flee their homeland to be forgotten."
