Film

Art need not have a pedagogical or political mission. And yet the timing of the release of this superb animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novels about coming of age in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution couldn’t be more fortuitous. For those still reeling from last week’s news on colossal misinformation about nuclear weapons in Iran, Persepolis arrives as a fleet primer on the history of a much misunderstood nation.

But Persepolis is much more than a history lesson; it’s also the story of a misunderstood girl—one who will certainly give Juno MacGuff a run for her money as the year’s best teenage heroine. Codirecting and cowriting with Vincent Paronnaud, Satrapi retains the simple, striking black-and-white visuals of her bildungsroman of a privileged, adored only child who has the guts to buy Iron Maiden tapes on the black market while draped under a chador. Sent to Vienna at 14, Marjane finds a different kind of freedom but also racism, homelessness and severe depression. She returns to Tehran, suffers and learns more; by 23 she’s off to France, where Satrapi lives to this day. The voice casting functions as a great tribute to Satrapi’s adopted homeland: Chiara Mastroianni as the teenage and adult Marjane; Catherine Deneuve—Mastroianni’s real-life mother—as Marjane’s mom; and Danielle Darrieux, France’s last surviving grande dame, as Marjane’s beloved grandmother. How beautifully perverse: a story about one third of the axis of evil presented in the language of the axis of weasel, released on Christmas. If only the world could turn like this the other 364 days.