Memories of an Iranian punk
Freddie Sayers on Persepolis
25 April 2008

Persepolis: Each frame is a work of art

'Yeah well, I'm off to see an Iranian cartoon with some of my new friends..." How happy I was to be able to say that. Things like Iranian cartoons have always been the preserve of other people - people who hang out at the RSA and smoke roll-up cigarettes with black liquorice papers. Now for a night, I could claim to be one of them.

Persepolis is the black-and-white cartoon autobiography of famous Iranian cartoonist Marjane Satrapi (OK, fine, I hadn't heard of her either - but my new friends had). It is a French-language film and was nominated for an Oscar (OK, fine, I saw an English-language version, zut alors...).

It took me totally by surprise. Instead of being arch and precious, it is funny, modern, informative and rings totally true. I wouldn't say it was forget-yourself, dream-about-it-afterwards engrossing (it is, after all, a cartoon), but it was a highly enjoyable 90 minutes that I have no hesitation in recommending.

It starts off just before the revolution in Iran, when Marjane is a little girl. She lives through the revolution and goes to school in Tehran before being sent off to Austria and then Paris for secondary school and university and eventually returning to Iran. It is the typical story: Persians frightened away from their home country but often struggling to find an identity in Europe. The first thing I must comment on is the animation. It is absolutely stunning. Instead of being computer-assisted and characterless, each frame is a work of art, in black and white charcoal with dramatic chiaroscuro and imagination and talent pouring into it. It briefly goes into full colour in Vienna (which I didn't quite understand) but the black-and-white shots look like memories captured on paper.

What is clever about Persepolis is that it's never heavy-handed, but always light and human. Despite her extraordinary circumstances, Marjane's story in most respects seems just like anyone else's; she listens to music, has boyfriends, gets hurt and shouts at her parents.

I confess that, for me, this served a useful educational purpose. It is possible, particularly when foreign countries are mythologised in the media, to conceive of them as dark places where the sun doesn't shine. Or rather, you know in theory that they are populated by humans with the same wants and joys as you, but you have never taken the time to think through what a life there would actually be like.

What Persepolis reinforces so well is how, even at its most dramatic and sinister, politics and great events usually play a backdrop role in people's lives. I love knowing that American pop music was sold on the streets of Tehran like marijuana at Camden Market - "Psst! Bee Gees!" - and that the girls in Marjane's class had a collective bout of hysterical laughter at the "nude" art class with a model fully covered in Islamic dress.

That is not to say Persepolis underplays the sinister side of the regime. Even in the opening frames there is a certain viciousness as Marjane and her six-year-old friends gnash their teeth and chase a boy down the street for being a supporter of the Shah ("We're going to poke his eyes out!" they cry). More than once, Marjane herself is complicit in the kind of unneighbourly attitude that an atmosphere of intimidation creates. But most of the time they drink home-brewed wine, they throw parties, and when Marjane's father is visited by the police he is more disturbed by having to pour his wine down the loo than the threat of punishment.

I confess also that I had not realised what a hand the intelligentsia had in the revolution. Marjane comes from an educated, high-class Iranian family (her grandfather was a relative of the Shah) - and both her father and uncle were instrumental figures in the beginnings of the revolution. They thought the situation couldn't get any worse than the corruption and mismanagement of the Shah, and didn't take the Islamic revolutionaries seriously.

The bit in the middle of the film, when Marjane is in Europe, is perhaps the best of all. The rejection of her homeland, combined with every teenager's desire to fit in, makes for some wonderful phases and scenes: she becomes an angry punk in Vienna's "alternative scene" (they welcome her because of her dark hair); she has a disastrous first sexual experience with a posh German ("Thank you Marjane - now I know it cannot work with any woman, and that I am gay! I can now be myself!"); she goes to university in Paris and pretends to be a Parisienne, wearing minidresses and lipstick; she also falls in love and has her heart broken. Even her arrival back in Iran is treated with the same good humour. She has not seen her parents for eight years but, instead of tears and melodrama, it is a brilliantly convincing non-event, as she sits glumly in her childhood room and wonders what on earth to do next.

If you have never seen an Iranian cartoon before then Persepolis is a good place to start. Only, you might have to find some new friends to go with you