Persepolis
Persepolis was an ancient capital of Persia the ruins of which sit in southern Iran so the title is fitting for this animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's semi autobiographical graphic novel. Although from France very little of the story takes place there or Europe in general. “Marji“ is born in Tehran during the time of the Shah and her pre-teens were as a westernized middle class school girl. Glossed over but important is the fact that she has a distant royal pedigree which could have been perilous until that monarchy was ousted in the ‘80’s. She rejoiced with her family at what the future held after the fall of that oligarchy as friends and relatives were released from prison but that former unease was replaced by different terror as the new fundamentalist government became ever more totalitarian. Marjane’s irrepressible independent thinking along with the war against Iraq cause her concerned family to send her to a Viennese school however culture shock eventually sends her packing home to be with her free thinking moderate family. They conform to fundamentalism in public but act more rationally behind closed doors and so like Persepolis, the Tehran she once knew is also in ruins. At a time when Dick Chaney was inches away from making Iran the third theatre of Middle Eastern engagement this is no cartoon – it’s a sober second look at a people who have really had enough.