PERSEPOLIS
Type: animated autofiction
By Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. With the voices (in the original edition) of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux
Meritoriously re-edited (and restored) by the Cineteca di Bologna for the “Cinema rediscovered”, Persepolisthe debut film of the Iranian-born French designer, is a very personal coming-of-age novel that exploits the sense of ellipse and irony to offer a synthetic and very human picture of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, religious fundamentalism.
Bringing to the screen, together with the designer and director Vincent Paronnaud, the four volumes of comics that had made her known throughout the world, Satrapi chooses not to betray the somewhat naive design that had made her famous and to focus everything on animation that is not only two-dimensional (in years of prevailing three-dimensionality), but almost completely in black and white (only a few scenes at the Paris airport are in color, a sort of homage to the country that hosts it today) .
A scene from “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (© Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud).
The effect is that of a healthy journey into graphic beauty and the warmth of feelings and the spontaneous and “innocent” strength that Marjane knows how to oppose to totalitarianism of all kinds (religious in Iran, cultural in Vienna) finds in the apparently elementary line the best way to reach the viewer’s heart.
For those who don’t want to forget the fate of women in Iran.
All reviews by Paolo Mereghetti
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