The Ottery
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Persepolis; or, Why Did They Leave out the Part about God and Karl Marx Looking Alike?

February 24th, 2008

It’s hard for me not to compare the movie to the comic book (or “graphic novel,” if you prefer, but author Marjane Satrapi has said that she finds that term pretentious) Persepolis, because I love the latter. This tale of a childhood in late 1970s and early 1980s Iran is endearing, sharp, poignant, and funny. The movie, in which Satrapi had a significant hand, is actually a combination of Persepolis (which follows Marji until the age of 14, when she leaves Iran) and Persepolis 2 (which details Marji’s search for identity as a student in Vienna and then back home in Tehran). I haven’t read Persepolis 2 yet, but I’ve heard from several people who didn’t like it as much as Persepolis, because it was less funny and involved more navel-gazing.

From what I can tell, it seems as if Satrapi and the other filmmakers evened out the tone difference between the two books by choosing to include the parts of Persepolis that were more like Persepolis 2 (i.e., more serious, more focused on individual identity). I wish I knew more about the reasons for combining them, because I find myself wishing they hadn’t. The film Persepolis is certainly still worth seeing, and it’s still a lot funnier than you might expect for a film dealing with the rise of fundamentalism in Iran. However, it lacks the tone and the depth of the book Persepolis.

One scene I particularly missed was the one in which, after having been given a comic book about dialectical materialism (yes, a comic book about dialectical materialism), the eight-year-old Marji reflects on how Karl Marx and God look alike, only Marx has a curlier beard. This is the one scene I was really hoping would make it into the movie, but it didn’t. And yet, in a scene that occurs during the Persepolis 2 half of the film, Marji has an encounter with God and . . . some random old guy with a curly beard. Without the previous scene, most viewers will probably have no idea what Marx (if they figure out his identity) is doing up there with God. Seems like poor continuity editing to me.

As far as complexity, the movie shuns the obvious ironies of Marji’s family’s political beliefs (leftist) and their social class (decidedly upper). In the book, the young Marji wants to be a prophet when she grows up—she wants to be “justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.” (And it’s this, along with the fact that she read a comic book about dialectical materialism at the age of eight, that makes Porpoise say, “So . . . this book is basically about you as a child?” “Yeah,” I say, “except for Islamic fundamentalism and execution of political prisoners and minor stuff like that.” However, another big difference is that Marji’s parents are a little hypocritical—call me biased, but I don’t think my parents were—and she doesn’t shy away from exploring that.) One of Marji’s first actions when she becomes a prophet will be to declare that all maids shall eat at the table with the rest of the family. The book is quite poignant as it deals with Marji’s growing awareness that her family participates in the class injustice that, theoretically, they oppose.

After the revolution against the Shah, after the country becomes an Islamic republic, it becomes clear that Marji’s family has disdain for “the masses.” Even her beloved Uncle Anoosh acknowledges that “in a country where half the population is illiterate you cannot unite the people around Marx. The only thing that can really unite them is nationalism or a religious ethic . . . .” Alas, this kind of irony is completely missing from the film Persepolis. Marji’s parents are simply leftist heroes, seemingly there for the rhetorical purpose of showing a Western audience that “not all Iranians are like that.” Part of Satrapi’s stated purpose in the book is indeed to set the record straight, to correct the image of Iran that dominates in the West, but, again, she does so with the awareness that even her “heroes who lost their lives in prison defending freedom” are far from perfect.

I still haven’t addressed the question that I’m sure will be weighing on everyone’s minds during the Oscars tonight: is Persepolis better than Ratatouille? I’m tempted to say “yes,” just because I don’t think Ratatouille is as great as many reviewers claim and I’d love to see an upset. But, frankly, Persepolis is no masterpiece either. Both films share the flaw of internal inconsistencies. But I’ll trust the vote of the people (okay, the elite who probably haven’t watched half the nominated films) to give Best Animated Feature to something that isn’t Surf’s Up.

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