Persepolis on DVD: English Language Version

I'm not often a fan of graphic or animated movies, but Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis (2007) is exceptional. Imagine a feature length version of Peanuts on the order of Snoopy and the Red Baron wherein the adults speak far more warmly and eloquently than their usual wanh wanh wanhs.

Imagine a precocious girl/young woman and her cool extended family living in a "bad scene," sort of like Anne Frank with greater mobility.














The backdrop is: first, life in 1978 near the end of the Shah's reign; then 1979 during the first phase of the Iranian Revolution; the period of the great Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988; and the 1990s.

Persepolis is terrific, worth seeing more than once, worth showing to any open-minded person from about age sixteen up, but especially adults (watch out for some funny but "foul" language and also background violence).













Marjane Satrapi (b. 11/22/1969, Rasht, Iran) is fabulous; the story is seen largely though her eyes as a child and teen and twenty-something.

Who could ask for better English-speaking voices, or richer ones with such gravitas?

Check these out:

Iggy Pop as Uncle Anouche;
Catherine Deneuve as Marjane's mother;
Chiara Mastroianni (daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni) as Marjane;
Sean Penn as Marjane's father;
Gena Rowlands as Marjane's grandfather.












Believe me, this is a real treat -- entertaining, hip, tragic, comic, all of it. Ignore the trailers, though -- the actual movie (and DVD) is far better than it might seem from the ones I've seen.
















Today's Rune: Journey.