Persepolis (2007)

Oh. My. God. This film is great. It is one of the single greatest films I have ever seen ever. It is nothing but amazing. I can only find one single problem with this film, and here it is-they have a montage, set to the single most clichéd montage song in history-Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. And don’t get me wrong, I do love that song. But after seeing Aliens in the Attic, I’m giving up on any montage with that song. Montages are clichéd enough, but that song in a montage has basically become its own cliché. Either way, besides that one thing, there are actually no problems with this film. It is perfect. The film follows the life of an Iranian girl as she comes of age during the Iranian Revolution. This is a completely true story, and was written as a graphic novel in 2000 by the main character. Now, there have been some autobiographies that have been butchered on film, but not here. This is due to one single key component that is remarkable if not admirable at the very least. This component is that the film is co-directed by the author of the graphic novels, and it is her story. She is in control of her story. And she cares about her story. The thing is, a director, even if they have never directed anything before or anything they have was complete garbage, if there is a story that they care about enough, it will be good. And here, it is great. The film is loaded with drama, wit, and heart. Now-a-days, few films have one of these qualities, let alone all three. There are just not a lot of films like that out here anymore. And the shame is, not a lot of people are going to see this movie. For one, it’s a strange animated film rated PG-13 that is strange, surreal, and not for the demographic that usually watches animated films. Secondly, it is a French film, which means that it is going to be weird (and I don’t mean anything offensive by that. The last French film I saw was a movie where a baby grew wings), and also subtitled. Now, for this film, there was an English dub available, but I decided not to use it. I picked the subtitles. Honestly, subtitles do not irritate me, it irritates me when the characters’ mouths don’t match the words they’re saying. It just brings me out of the film. Either way, I don’t know a lot of people that are okay with subtitles like myself. And that makes me sad. But still, subtitle-phobic or not, this is a film that needs to be seen. It is honest, beautiful, truthful, hilarious, tragic, and near-perfect. NOTE: The film, while it was France’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, it did not score a nomination (which it should have), it was nominated for Best Animated Film. It lost the award to Ratatouille. And while that film is very good, it’s no Persepolis. This is my favorite animated film I’ve ever seen, tied with Wall-E and Toy Story 3.
9.5/10