Its All There In Black And White (from This Is Local London)

Persepolis (12A)
Star rating: ****
Dir: Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi
With: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Sean Penn, Iggy Pop

It says a lot about how both adult animation and graphic novels have been embraced by mainstream culture that the film of the week - and, for my money, of the month - is an example of the latter adapted from the former. Not only that, Persepolis is a black and white film, made in France (though being released in English and French language versions) and based on a book by an Iranian author.

If you think all this makes for inaccessible arthouse fare, think again: Persepolis won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, then cleaned up at the box office across France and was subsequently nominated for Best Animated Film at this year's Oscars. The degree of recognition Persepolis has received from critics, the public and industry insiders would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

Based on her own much-praised memoir, Persepolis (the title is derived from the Greek name for Persia) tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's childhood and early adult years spent growing up in Iran. It begins with nine-year-old Satrapi living with her intellectual Marxist parents in Tehran in the late 1970s under the Shah and continues on through the traumatic Islamic revolution and catastrophic war with Iraq before taking a detour to Vienna - where the teenage Satrapi was sent to study - finally returning to Iran in the 1990s, with Satrapi now a 24-year-old woman.

As was the case for many Iranians living under the increasingly repressive regime of the new Republic, this period was a very difficult time for Satrapi and her family (who were descended from aristocrats - her maternal great-grandfather was the Persian emperor from 1848 to 1896). Satrapi's uncle was imprisoned and sentenced to execution, her friend next door was killed in a bomb blast and Satrapi, along with all the other females in the country, was forced to wear head scarves and continually harassed by the Republican guards.

It sounds like grim stuff, but while Persepolis is a brutally honest account of Satrapi's life, it's also very funny and extremely moving. In one particularly poignant scene, the young Satrapi pays a tearful visit to her beloved uncle on death row; in another, more upbeat, one little Marjane scores a bootleg Iron Maiden tape and head-bangs to the power chords while wearing her hated headwear. The film constantly switches back and forth between these kind of achingly moving and painfully funny moments, and the staccato tone shifts never fail to register.

Persepolis is also an extraordinarily rich self-portrait of an artist and a young woman. Satrapi portrays herself as at once precocious, obnoxious and egocentric; intelligent, spirited and loving. And if all that makes her insufferable at times, Satrapi's uncommon degree of self-awareness and her ironic sense of humour ensure that this autobiographical sketch is utterly charming.

Now in her late thirties, Satrapi has made a life for herself in Paris, where she writes and draws graphic novels and children's books. Persepolis the book was originally published there in four volumes between 2000 and 2003, and has since been translated into 24 languages, selling over a million copies. Persepolis the film was also made in Paris, with the assistance of fellow comic book writer Vincent Paronnaud and a team of animators. Initially, Satrapi had no interest in undertaking the project, partly because she wondered what more could be done with the material, but also because she was concerned about cashing in on the success of the book. She needn't have worried.

While the film remains faithful to the book, in terms of story and visual style, it also embellishes on the original. The narrative has been rejigged so that it's now interlaced with present-day sections set in Paris (distinguished by being in colour) in which grown-up Satrapi recalls her youth. The deceptively simple cartoon-like illustrations of the characters have been transferred to the film unchanged, but the rudimentary or often non-existent backgrounds in the book have been sketched in or fleshed out in shades of grey. The result is something like a German expressionist film crossed with an episode of The Simpsons. And, of course, the film also adds sound to the imagery. The French language version features the vocal talents of Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve, and Marcello Mastroianni, as Satrapi, and Deneuve herself as Satrapi's mother. For the English version, Mastroianni and Deneuve are joined by an uncredited American cast which includes Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn and one of Satrapi's music idols, Iggy Pop. Add to those distinctive voices evocative sound effects and a lively music score that encompasses traditional, modern, Middle Eastern and Western sounds and you have a rich aural tapestry to complement the striking visuals.

The greatest coup of the film, however, is the way in which it uses Satrapi and her family's story to illustrate the day-to-day lives of ordinary Iranian people. It humanises rather than demonises them, and reminds us not everyone in the Middle East is a fundamentalist, extremist or terrorist. And in these turbulent times that's a terribly important message.

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