Yesterday after our Saturday morning Tai Chi classes and usual brunch routine, Lisa and I walked over to Downtown Berkeley to to watch a movie. I hadn’t been following movies at all lately so at the theater we had to take some time to decide which movie to watch. After some coin tosses and discussion, we ended up choosing Persepolis, a movie which Lisa had heard good things about and which the ticket person had also heard good things too.
What a fantastic movie!
I was unfamiliar with the story as well as the historical context of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the wars with Iraq, and found the story of the person growing up there and abroad quite touching. I was also grateful never having to have grown up under such difficult social and political conditions. I though the movie illustrated the challenges of life there and growing up in general very well.
Beyond the story itself, I found the animation quite stylized and expressive as well as just completely effective in supporting the story. I could imagine such a style easily overpowering a lesser movie, but here I felt it very strongly worked to accentuate and bring out aspects of the story that could only be done with animation.
A beautiful movie with such a touching story, I would heartily recommend it to anyone I know.