Plot
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.
Keywords: iran, revolution, 1970s, coming-of-age, tyranny, dream, shah, iranian-revolution, drug-use, vienna-austria
Marjane's grandmother: Fear lulls our minds to sleep.
Marjane's grandmother: The first marriage is practice for the second.
Marjane's grandmother: Listen. I don't like to preach, but here's some advice. You'll meet a lot of jerks in life. If they hurt you, remember it's because they're stupid. Don't react to their cruelty. There's nothing worse than bitterness and revenge. Keep your dignity and be true to yourself.
[first lines]::Airport receptionist: Ticket and passport, please.
Momo: Life is a void. When man realizes that he can no longer live, so he invents power games...::Marjane as a teenager: Bullshit! Life isn't absurd! Some people give their lives for freedom. You think my uncle died for fun? Egotistical prick.
Marjane (voice over): I remember I led a peaceful, uneventful life as a little girl. I loved fries with ketchup, Bruce Lee was my hero, I wore Adidas sneakers and had two obsessions: Shaving my legs one day and being the last prophet of the galaxy.
Mr. Satrapi - Marjane's father: [while saying goodbye to his daughter] Never forget who you are and where you're from.
God: Go, and do what you have to do.::Marx: Remember, the struggle goes on! Eh?::God: Yeah, yeah. The struggle goes on.
Paris Taxi Driver: Where are you from?::Marjane (voice over): Iran.
Coordinates | 12°58′0″N77°34′0″N |
---|---|
name | Persepolis |
director | Marjane SatrapiVincent Paronnaud |
producer | Xavier RigaultMarc-Antoine RobertKathleen Kennedy |
screenplay | Marjane SatrapiVincent Paronnaud |
based on | |
starring | Chiara MastroianniCatherine DeneuveDanielle DarrieuxSimon Abkarian |
music | Olivier Bernet |
editing | Stéphane Roche |
studio | The Kennedy/Marshall Company |
distributor | Sony Pictures Classics |
released | |
runtime | 95 minutes |
country | |
language | FrenchEnglishPersianGerman |
budget | $7.3 million |
gross | $22,752,488 }} |
The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France and Belgium on June 27. In her acceptance speech, Satrapi said "Although this film is universal, I wish to dedicate the prize to all Iranians." The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to ''Ratatouille''.
The film was released in the United States on December 25, 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2008.
During this time all political enemies ceased fighting and elections for a new leading power commenced. However, things do not get any better for the family, when they are profoundly upset when Islamic Fundamentalists win the elections with 99.99% of the vote and force Iranian society into its own kind of repressive state. The hands of the law, now controlled by Khomeini, make laws that make things worse for the Iranian people, such as forcing women to dress modestly (including wearing the hijab) to rearresting and executing Anouche for his political beliefs. Profoundly disillusioned, Marji rejects her prophetic aspirations before God and tries with her family to fit into the reality of the intolerant regime. To make things worse, the Iran-Iraq war breaks out and Marji sees for herself the horrors of death and destruction; the Iranian government begins implementing blatant laws that create ridiculous injustices. Marji witnesses her father threatened by teenage government officials wielding machine-guns and watches her critically ill uncle die because an unqualified government-appointed hospital administrator refuses to let him go abroad for medical treatment. The family tries to find some solace in secret parties where they can enjoy simple pleasures the government has outlawed, such as alcohol. As she grows up, Marji begins a life of over-confidence, where she refuses to stay out of trouble, where she secretly buys Western heavy metal music, notably Iron Maiden, on the black market, wears unorthodox clothing such as a denim jacket, and even celebrating punk rock and other Western music sensations like Michael Jackson, or openly rebutting a teacher's lies about the abuses of the government.
Fearing her arrest for her outspokenness, Marji's parents make the difficult decision to send her to a French Lycée in Vienna, Austria in 1983, where she could be safe and free to express herself. She lives with Catholic nuns when she arrives and soon finds herself on edge with the discriminatory and judgmental nuns. Marji does make new friends, but ultimately she feels intolerably isolated in a foreign land surrounded by annoyingly superficial people who take their freedoms for granted. As the years pass on, Marji is thrown out of her temporary shelter for verbally abusing a nun, and is driven out into the streets. Marji continues to go from house to house, until ending up in a house of Frau Dr. Schloss, a retired philosophy teacher. One night, Her grandmother's voice about staying true to herself resonates within her when she leaves a party after lying about her nationality; telling an acquaintance that she was French. Her shame culminates in a passionate love affair with Markus, a debonair native, which traumatically ends on her eighteenth birthday when she discovers him cheating on her. Also, her previous lover reveals himself to be homosexual after a bad sexual experience with Marji. Marjane falls apart over her breakup, and when she is accused of stealing Frau Dr. Schloss's brooch, Marji gets fed up and angrily leaves. She spends the day on a park bench, and reflects upon how cruel Markus was to her. She soon discovers that she has nowhere to go and ends up living on the street for a few months. Eventually, she becomes so ill that she contracts bronchitis, and almost ends up dying.
Eventually, Marji recovers in a Vienna Hospital, and returns to Iran in 1987, with her family's permission and hopes that the conclusion of the war would mean an improved life there. After a while of spending her time in front of television for days on end, doing nothing to advance her life, Marji falls into a clinical depression over the state of affairs in Iran and the misery that has nearly ruined her family. It is not clearly explained in the movie, but she attempts suicide by overdosing on her medication. She gets into bed and closes her eyes before she enters a dream where God and the spirit of Karl Marx appear before her to remind her of what is important and encourage her to go on with living. She bounces back with renewed determination and begins enjoying life again: she attends university classes, goes to parties, and even enters a relationship with a fellow student, who is later revealed to be Reza. With the recent death of Khomeini, Marji notices that things have gradually gone worse; she discovers that Iranian society is more tyrannized than ever with numerous atrocities occurring. With Ali Khamenei now controlling the society, mass executions for political beliefs and petty religious absurdities and hypocrisies have become common in everyday life (she and her boyfriend are caught holding hands and their parents forced to pay a fine), much to Marjane's dismay. While this makes living as both a student and a woman intolerable, Marji manages to hold on to her rebellious attitude. However, she starts resorting to personal survival tactics to protect herself, such as falsely accusing a man of making a pass at her to avoid being arrested for wearing make up and marrying her boyfriend to avoid scrutiny by the religious police. Her grandmother, disappointed by Marji's behaviour, berates Marji, and tells her that both her grandfather and her uncle died supporting freedom and innocent people, and that she never forsake them or her family by succumbing to the repressive environment of Iran. Marji, realizing her mistake, does what she can to fix it, and her grandmother is pleased upon hearing that Marjane openly confronted the blatant sexist double standard in her university's forum on public morality.
By 1994, her marriage is falling apart and things come to an end when the police raid a party, resulting in a friend being killed trying to escape. After these incidents and her divorce, the family decides that Marji leave the country again, and this time permanently, to avoid her being targeted by the authorities as a political dissident. Marji's mother then forbids Marji from coming back, to which Marji reluctantly agrees. Her grandmother was never to be seen again by Marji, and she dies soon after her departure. Marji is shown collecting her luggage and getting into a taxi. As the taxi pulls away from the south terminal of Paris-Orly Airport, the narrative cuts back to the present day. When the driver asks Marji where she is from, she replies "Iran", showing that she's kept the promise she made to Anoosh and her grandmother years ago that she would remember where she came from and that she would always stay true to herself. The screen fades to black as she recalls her final memory of her grandmother telling her how she placed jasmine in her brassiere to allow her to smell lovely every day, and the credits then follow.
The film was released in Canada with the original French soundtrack and English subtitles; the US release showed exactly the same footage but the mouths of the characters followed the English speaking track instead of simply being dubbed over the French speaking track.
''Time'' magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #6. Corliss praised the film, calling it “a coming-of-age tale, that manages to be both harrowing and exuberant.”
It has been ranked #58 in ''''Empire'' magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.
Despite such objections, the Iranian cultural authorities relented in February 2008 and allowed limited screenings of the film in Tehran, albeit with six scenes censored due to sexual content.
;2007 European Film Awards
;2007 London Film Festival
;2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival
;2007 São Paulo International Film Festival
;2007 Vancouver International Film Festival
Category:2007 films Category:2000s comedy-drama films Category:French films Category:French animated films Category:French comedy films Category:French drama films Category:American films Category:American animated films Category:American biographical films Category:American comedy-drama films Category:American coming-of-age films Category:French-language films Category:English-language films Category:Persian-language films Category:German-language films Category:Films based on comics Category:Films set in Iran Category:Films set in the 1970s Category:Films set in the 1980s Category:Films set in the 1990s Category:Iranian Revolution films Category:The Kennedy/Marshall Company films Category:Sony Pictures Classics films
cs:Persepolis (film) de:Persepolis (Film) es:Persépolis (película) fa:پرسپولیس (فیلم) fr:Persepolis (film) gl:Persépolis (película) ko:페르세폴리스 (영화) it:Persepolis (film) he:פרספוליס (סרט) ka:პერსეპოლისი (ანიმაციური ფილმი) la:Persepolis (pellicula) mzn:پرسپولیس (فیلم) nl:Persepolis (film) ja:ペルセポリス (映画) pl:Persepolis (film) pt:Persepolis (filme) ro:Persepolis (film) ru:Персеполис (мультфильм) sv:Persepolis (film) th:แพร์ซโพลิส (ภาพยนตร์) tr:Persepolis (film) zh:茉莉人生This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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