Starstruck in Persepolis
So, I watched two very different films recently (will post about Saw 4 another time). Just to get it out the way, here is the official film website for Persepolis.
I watched this courtesy of a friend of mine in London who was offering an extra ticket to go watch this in Leicester Square as part of the London Film Festival (Thanks, Steph!), and given that I've been reading Margaret's blog for a few years now, and that she only has good words for the graphic novel (pictured to the right), I jumped at the chance.
Wikipedia says: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi describes her childhood in Iran after the revolution. [It] is followed by Persepolis 2, which details Satrapi's life afterwards, during the war between Iran and Iraq. Persepolis 3 describes her high school years in Austria, and Persepolis 4 describes her return to Iran, where she went to college, got married, and later divorced, before moving to France, where she now lives.
Click on the cover to read an excerpt from the (first, I believe) book.
The film is fantastic, and makes me want to read the four graphic novels right now! They look amazing.
The music, animation, storyline were all done very well. The film is a really hard, honest, humourous (alliteration?!) account of Satrapi's life, with all of life's twists and turns. You really feel what she feels in the scenes of uncertainty, shock, sorrow, listlessness. I never thought a graphically simple animated film could convey so much. My friend and I were left speechless.
And the topping on the cake was that Marjane Satrapi herself appeared at the end of the film to field some questions! I was starstruck... people asked about how difficult it was to translated the novel into film format (she spoke of how she had to work closely with animators to get the motions right, how difficult it was to find the right music), and someone kind of showed their silliness by asking if the story was based on anyone....
I really want to understand more about that region now. Here are some links to interviews with Satrapi, with Bookslut, with News-a-rama, and Powells.
I watched this courtesy of a friend of mine in London who was offering an extra ticket to go watch this in Leicester Square as part of the London Film Festival (Thanks, Steph!), and given that I've been reading Margaret's blog for a few years now, and that she only has good words for the graphic novel (pictured to the right), I jumped at the chance.
Wikipedia says: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi describes her childhood in Iran after the revolution. [It] is followed by Persepolis 2, which details Satrapi's life afterwards, during the war between Iran and Iraq. Persepolis 3 describes her high school years in Austria, and Persepolis 4 describes her return to Iran, where she went to college, got married, and later divorced, before moving to France, where she now lives.
Click on the cover to read an excerpt from the (first, I believe) book.
The film is fantastic, and makes me want to read the four graphic novels right now! They look amazing.
The music, animation, storyline were all done very well. The film is a really hard, honest, humourous (alliteration?!) account of Satrapi's life, with all of life's twists and turns. You really feel what she feels in the scenes of uncertainty, shock, sorrow, listlessness. I never thought a graphically simple animated film could convey so much. My friend and I were left speechless.
And the topping on the cake was that Marjane Satrapi herself appeared at the end of the film to field some questions! I was starstruck... people asked about how difficult it was to translated the novel into film format (she spoke of how she had to work closely with animators to get the motions right, how difficult it was to find the right music), and someone kind of showed their silliness by asking if the story was based on anyone....
I really want to understand more about that region now. Here are some links to interviews with Satrapi, with Bookslut, with News-a-rama, and Powells.