Friday 3rd July

Persepolis

Director: Vincent Parannaud, Marjane Satrapi
Year: 2007
Stars: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Sean Penn, Gena Rowlands (voices in English language version)

I had been wanting to see this film since it was released at the cinema a couple of years ago. Somehow I never got around to it, so Dan bought me the DVD for my birthday. Admittedly it has taken me 3 months to find the time to watch it, but I finally got around to it this evening!

The real life story is all about Marjane Satrapi, a young girl in '70s Iran who gets sent away to Vienna in order to keep her safely away from the war and revolution in Iran. It follows her as she grows up in Austria, and then looks at how she copes with her return to Iran.

The film is certainly intriguing - it manages to interweave humour and a history lesson very effectively - I certainly know a lot more about Iran in the 1980s now than I did a week ago! The artwork is very different to anything I've seen before - not to say it's bad, just not a style I've ever seen. Had I not been expecting it I may have found it harder to adjust to, but having seen a number of trailers I knew what was coming.

Overall, an educational, enjoyable film - although I did find it ended in a strange place. It makes sense, but it left me wanting to know what happened next.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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About Me

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I live in Bristol with my husband Dan (who I married in July 2007), my son Joe (born 2012) and daughter Jess (born 2015). I work at UWE (the University of the West of England) in Bristol as a Research and Open Access Librarian. I'm orginally from Exeter, so moving back to Bristol is a bit like coming home - especially as I studied for my undergraduate degree here (also at UWE). I love travelling and movies, although I get to do a lot less of both since the birth of our children. Although we have still managed to fit in holidays to the Isles of Scilly, Chamonix and a summer in California since Joe was born.