Movie review with additions

"Persepolis", by Marjane Satrapi, is a graphic novel that details the story of a young girls tribulations during the Iranian revolution of the 1980's. It was recently made into a movie which stays as faithful as possible while is still a great movie for those who have never read it.

"Persepolis" starts out in a French airport as we see Marjane smoking a cigarette, looking around pensively as the story goes back a few decades to her childhood. To keep things brief, as we go through Marjane's story she clearly went through a lot, from losing family members and friends, to having to deal with "The Guardians". As we go through her life we are introduced to various characters, all with distinct personalities and each add something extra to the story. From the general kindheartedness of Marji's father to the heartbreaking story of Fereydoon, they all make the story all the more heart wrenching. The level of emotion derived from the movie is also stepped up from the different animation and cinematography used. At a particular point in the movie when Marjane is at probably the lowest point of her life, the background turns darker and the world turns utterly bleek, which really made me get into the movie.

I am not the only one who is singing Persepolis' praises though, as in his recent review, Roger Ebert states,"It might seem that her story is too large for one 98-minute film, but Persepolis tells it carefully, lovingly and with great style", and I for one could not agree more. But "Persepolis" is also great for other reasons. For one, it proves McCloud right when he states, "The world of comics is a huge and varied one", as when someone thinks of a comic, I highly doubt they would think of anything like Ms. Satrapi's "Persepolis".

"Persepolis" is not without it faults, however, but they are minor. It leaves a few scenes out from the graphic novel version but also adds a few scenes that weren't present in the novel which added more to the movie overall. The movie also took several scenes out of order from the graphic novel, but they still work and are cohesive.

Overall, I definitely give my highest accolades to "Persepolis", it was a heart wrenching detailing of a girl's struggles growing up in one of the toughest of environments possible, yet still has moments of pure happiness. It really toys with your emotions and for that I love it.