WMEG went to see Persepolis last week. We loved it! If for some strange reason you have yet to see this film, do yourself a favor, and get your butt in the theatre.
While the film is almost exclusively in black-and-white, you won't even notice. Satrapi's narrative infuses the film with all the color and vibrancy necessary. It's accessible enough to a wide range of audiences so that just about everybody can derive the right mix of laughter, knowledge, and analysis from the story (and is that not the point of film itself?). Fun fact side facts: Anoush (Marjane's radical uncle) is an Armenian name. And with that not-entirely-vital bit of Armenian pride, we have now officially become either our Armenia-radical grandmother or the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Everything is Armenian (or Greek, or Arab, or whatever you like). Just look harder. And put some Windex. Anyway!
Even though WMEG saw this film at San Francisco's Embarcadero Landmark Theatre, allegedly a prime choice for educated city folk (read: white liberal people who donate to Greenpeace and HRC), we could still discern faint head-scratching among our fellow theatre-goers. The mental wheel-turning surfaced: "Oh! Those Iranians didn't all like the shah?" "The British tried to meddle in Iran? And the Iranians didn't like that either?" "There were communists in Iran?!" "People in Iran listen to Iron Maiden and do aerobics?!!!!" Hah! We hope that this film reaches as many people as possible in the "West." It is exactly this type of humanizing, via a fairly universal and popular medium, which can derail Orientalism.
2 comments:
The reason the people you discuss think this way is cuz all the freaking Iranians in this country are here cuz they LOVED the SHAH and didn't like the Islamic revolution. DUH!!!
Oh, yeah! Sorry, I was too busy detailing my BMW and getting my unibrow threaded to pay more attention to my post. Want to come over and watch Not Without My Daughter later?
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