Persepolis (France/United States, 2007) is an
animation movie co-directed by the Iranian Marjane Satrapi and based on the
comic book published by her in 2000. The movie dramatizes the 1979 fundamentalist Iranian revolution, the war against Iraq as well as the self exile of the authoress, first in Austria and then in Paris. Made in black and white tones with rich textures the result is a high pictorial quality. Marjane flirts with the traditional Persian art as well as the occidental graphic arts, creating an expressive combination. This style was responsible by an indication to the Oscar of
animation of this year. According to The New York Times the Persepolis
comic book has been introduced in 118 American College curriculums such as the West Point Military Academy. This is, at the same time, the recommendation and the plague that reach the Marjane´s work: the super-valorization which results from the rarity of female reports about life under the Islamism. This is also the aspect that has fogged the main defect of the movie. In its second half it becomes a melodrama of a teenager that thinks the world and the revolutions are against her. From the moment that Marjane has gone to Austria as a rebel Persepolis stops its growth and falls down to a simplification.