Spring Break Post: Persepolis and the Nakedness of a Good Memoir

    For those of you that don't know, Persepolis was a graphic Memoir that came out in the mid-2000's.  Marjane Satrapi chronicled her years of growing up (split between Iran and France predominately) set against the strife in Iran at the time.  A few years later, a film version was made in the same sort of artistic style and a whole host of English voice actors including Sean Penn and Iggy Pop.   

     

Film

 

Comic
       

      The comic was great, and I read it at a time where I was swamped with so-so memoirs, so it seemed even more powerful by comparison.  The main aspects that set a good memoir apart from a bad one, are how believable the narrator is, the tone of said narrator, and just how much of him or herself (her in this case), she is willing to bear.  In Persepolis, the story is told with a voice of someone much wiser than the Satrapi in the time line of the book.  She is self-reflexive, but not overly so; instead, she gives the thoughts of her younger self and intersperses a voice in a sort of repose.  Her new voice doesn't overshadow the old, it simply passes judgment when needed.  For the most part though, Satrapi leaves it up to the readers to make sense of her actions and feelings of her adolescent self, so that they may find some sort of greater sense in the world or themselves because of it.

    Satrapi isn't afraid to show the bad in herself or in Iran, and the film stays with that throughout.  One of her darkest moments was when she was being targeted by a guard in Iran and instead made him believe that some random guy near her had harassed her, and the stranger gets hauled away.  What's worse is that she laughs when she tells this to her grandmother, who doesn't look at her the same after it, at least for a long while.  It's necessary to show the good with the bad, because withholding history, for any reason, sleights it to make it untrue.  A story from one individual is inherently unreliable, so a narrator that shows herself in every light, maybe because she wants to but because she knows she needs to, is quite believable.  Without different sides to the story, be it from friends, family or recorded history, a memoir loses impact and credibility.

Film

Comic

  The film was an average adaptation of a great novel, but it stayed fairly true to the original.  The artwork is similar enough, but has been changed to suit the story's new medium.  In the comic, the panels are just two-toned black and white images, a basic unit of art that allows the story to really come through without being bogged down.  The film is still black and white, but there are gradings of grey, and the backgrounds are much more detailed.  The film cut the memoir short, as most adaptations do, and therefore didn't do the comic enough justice I feel.  The quality of the film was great, with good voice-overs and crisp hand-drawn animation, but having read the original, I just think the film seemed rushed.  The comic goes over so many different little idiosyncrasies of childhood and puberty, along with the overarching horrors in Satrapi's motherland of Iran, and a two hour block just doesn't suffice in my opinion.

   

Comments

[Christen Sanderson]

Really cool! I love the basically black and white animation. It really adds a cool dramatic element to this film! I need to rent this and watch it!

[Chuck Soo-Hoo]

I remember watching the movie before I read the novel. After reading the novel, it is clearly better than the movie. I agree that the film doesn't do much justice to the novel. But, most animation films are no more than 90 minutes and for it to be an adaptation of the graphic novel can only show so much. It's the same thing with "Watchmen" that graphic novel is amazing! The film was great but not equally as good as the novel. I do hope the 7 hour cut or however long it is comes out on DVD soon though.

[Carlyn Pocalyko]

Usually, movie adaptations of comic books tend to leave out a lot of the things that give the comic its own sense of flair and style. However, I can't really say much as I haven't read or watched Persepolis, but it's on my list of movies to definitely watch.

[Elliot]

I think it is much more important that the film captured the style and overall story the way it did, rather than try to maintain direct accuracy to the original. Since Satrapi helped make the film, I feel she helped to make it operate well in both realms - as a more detailed graphic novel and as a short, yet still enthralling film. I've always felt that film adaptations need not replace the literary originals, but simply complement them, as the recent film "Where The Wild Things Are" by Spike Jonze did, aided greatly by the help of the author himself, Maurice Sendak.