Toronto – Real life stories aren’t always very interesting to tell. After all, 100% of us live it 24-7, so why would we like to review life in a movie? Because, we’re not Buddha and our powers of omnipresence only work when smoking. When Hollywood runs out of dry and forced situation, in comes real life to jazz up the “life’s-stranger-than-fiction” factor.  Persepolis is the true story of an Iranian woman who was sent to Vienna to avoid the Iran-Iraq war, and other bits of her life before and after that episode. Although it does have 120% ego content, the underlying human struggle lends the film much more strength.

Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969. In 1984, in the mist of a change of political regimes, her leftist parents send her away from home to live with a family friend. Unbeknownst to them, her reception in Vienna was cold, and she was soon stuffed in a convent (or a broading house run by the nuns). Despite this, she learned to survive in, if not enjoy the Western culture (which somehow consisted of hippies/weed, nihilism, iron maiden, and deaf-rock concerts among others) that she was so deprived of in Iran. After several bouts of relationship failures, she hit a personal low and found that she seeked home more than anything. Upon returning in 1992, Marjane found that things have not really improved. Feeling powerless, she slips further into clinical depression. Exactly what cured it wasn’t clear in the film (it was a mix of God, and Karl Marx?). Eventually she began to attend the university, got married because she needed to see her boyfriend, got divorced because she found out marriage sucks, and left Iran again for Paris to seek a better life, which is deferred to telling in real life.

I don’t really give credit to coming-of-age scenerios. It’s as if comparison of past hardship is necessary in order to justify a person’s worth. Yes, we’ve all been through our respective shit-creeks and swam across Rivers of Styx while paralyzed – get on with it. I did find the telling of the background story, of her father’s friends, her uncle, her neighbors and friends, much more poignant. It paints a much clearer picture of the social condition, and that’s what we want in a film- a broad, transporting experience to a foreign regime and the nuances that comes with it. The fact, for example, that her neighbor had to die of heart disease because he was denied a passport from an incompetent administrator who used to wash windows, was in contrast with the life that Marjane led in Austria. I am also particular about the animation – this film was well-done in the graphics department. I liked the use of silhouettes and the slick inversion of backgrounds, and the style of the motions of the characters reminded me of paper/projection puppetry. Very trippy.

Overall, I’d recommend this if you have a good afternoon to relax and ponder life. And yes. The struggle must go on, sigh.