Yeah, we made it! The first POPMCC, Popular Media Criticism Club, -meeting went well watching animation Persepolis (2007). Thank you all for the active conversation after the film. Please feel free to comment the movie. Thou I don’t know does Jere need to accept you all as writer before you can comment. We’ll see.
Finally it shows the right time. You should be able to leave a comment, if you have logged in with your Google account.
ReplyDeleteIt’s Friday. What happens on Fridays? -Popular Media Criticism Club meets. Yes, well what’s wrong? –Nobody wrote anything concerning Persepolis we watched last week, 7 days ago! Shame on you guys, shame on YOU!
ReplyDeleteWell, whatever. I want my CAS, you do what you want.
So,
Persepolis was a fine movie indeed. For an animation it was really well made. I liked the fact that visual appearance looked like handmade. The movie itself was made in year 2007 and of course they had used computers, but still the animation seemed like drawing. The movie was mainly shown in black and white colors. This worked well and, because of the lake of colors the viewer understood the mood of the film. Music in general was ok. Eye of the Tiger worked.
What about the story? It was a sad one =(. The main character was lost. She had no real friends and even though she felt that she shared some bonds with Iran, her native country, it wasn’t her ideological home land. Her place was neither in Iran nor in Europe. She never found her place in this world. What a tragedy. The scars of war can never be healed.
Some might say that Persepolis criticized the Shah government and the Iran politics. Still more noticeable is the evil that men do. Not the government or the ideology, but the people behind it. Yes, Persepolis was a satire, but it is not the system that’s messed up –it’s the people that run the wheel.
Sorry for the delay, had written this awhile ago on my iPod and had not uploaded. I wrote this review without taking into account it would be posted on a page about Peresopolis. Any way here is my review:
ReplyDeleteStart with, what is peresopolis? Peresopolis is a film based on an autobiography of "" about her time in Iran during the revolutions that Iran saw during the 1970's(?) The story follows tuis girls life growing up in a country which had suppressive governents, a revolution and war. We see these events from the perspective of the girl and during the early parts of the film where the protagonist is still very young, and see these very political events from a childs view. As th girl grows we get a more deepened picture of the events that had unfolded in Iran with more a and more vivid graphics.
The film, even though it is through terrible time in Irans history, is for the most part very entertaining. In my opinion a good film is one which takes you on a journey, with a captivating story, a story telling that gets you intrigued, moments which make yoou think about our own world, as well as anfilm which lifts you up out of those moments of gloom with humour. This film delivers all of these.
The film is, except for the moments when we see the girl in the present, entirely shot in black and white. Story wise this is because the protagonist is rememebering events rather than telling us the story in the present tense. It is also very effective at keeping the audiances attention focused on what the film is actually showing than the distracting them with lots of colours.
Overall I recommend this film as being on a list of films to see before you die. A film which should b watched but not a film you should go out your way to watch. This film is fairly international with humor all can relate to and a topic which we can all apreciate. If understood by the majority of the audiances, watch the film in Its original language, French.
Yeah, sorry for the delay but I think what everyone was waiting for was for someone to start ☺
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the film! It was totally different from what I expected, since it is pretty rare to make animations about such “serious” topics, but I think it worked really well! It was very diverse, and talked about a whole pile of important and current issues.
Right from the beginning it got the audience’s attention, and I think at least partially thanks to the music I got hooked right away. It was different from other films, and it was a real advantage.
The fact that it was based on a true story, the life of a real woman made it especially interesting. And the fact that it was made from the point of view of a person from Iran. Iran is like this country that we never actually talk about, and at least I didn’t know almost anything about it’s history beforehand, so it was very educational and critical towards the society we live in. (An excellent film to watch and comment on for CAS ;)
Yes, as Tim said the film was mostly entertaining, but I think it was really good and worked well because the plot and themes were mostly rather depressive, and the topic was sort of a sore subject so without all the humour we would have taken it very differently.
Also the use of humour helped us get into the skin of the protagonist, and it showed us that people all around the world are the same. Enforcing one of the messages the film wanted to pass on: racism is wrong.
The film was a message to all people. We are the ones who make the governments, our entire society, wars; everything is just up to us.
Let's not complain anymore ;), for the reviews
ReplyDeleteare finally here. As you know already, we watched Persepolis, an animation about life an times of an Iranian caught in the tides of revolution and war.
"Persepolis was a superb film, an autobiographical story about an iranian woman, about her childhood in Iran and in Wien, about being stranger in everywhere
you go.
It was an animation, a format that fit the story well, which, of course, is no suprise as Persepolis was originally a visual novel. Nevertheless I was suprised by deep emotions an animation could contain.
There was such humor, deep and spontaneuous that sprung from sadness that hid everywhere in the film. It was not a happy film, as films touching war and revolution rarely are, but still so humane, it's words striking deep in our hearts: "if only ideals could last."
And yet I do not think there was any message, any theme grander than life. No, it was first and foremost an autobiography, a story of a single life, not of grand messages.
And this was fine, maybe it's beauty was minute, but it was so perfectly polished..."
4½ stars
I found this movie to be one of the best movies I've seen in a long while. What I found the most interesting and refreshing was the stance of the girl to the corrupt world around her. It depicted the unfortunate situation in Iran in relation to the revolution taking place with such sincerity that I almost cried.
ReplyDeleteIt is in a sense ironic that so few no that much about Iran and its history and yet it is the subject of so much political debate today. In a way, I found this movie to be a wake-up call to all those who have that one-sided view of that great nation. Very few realize, how liberal and progressive the people really are, since this is so very well hidden from the mass media.
I found also interesting how the seemingly clear imbalance between the roles of men and women was brought out in the movie and how the cultural aspects were oppressing day in and day out. My heart broke for not only this girl but everyone who has to go through that everyday.
Beyond all, this movie was about the search for freedom. Though freedom could be found in Europe, there was very little comfort. People had become so individualistic that they could not bother to take care of a girl lying on a park bench.
Moreover, Marjane was incapable of being happy due to the fact that she knew how her family was suffering back home. Thus happiness would bring with itself guilt.
Worth noting also is the political apathy amongst the young people in Western countries in relation to the way some are still fighting with their lives to have better justice in their countries. The say that we are given should not be ignored.
Anna was talking about a delay at ~mid september, well this is the real delay ;)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, the film expressed a very strong opininion. The use of grayscale made the ambience very anxious and desperate, and the way the story was presented gave the animation a feeling of them being memories.
The protagonist, Marjane Satrapi, is an Iranian girl from the upper class, who lived in Iran during the Islamic revolution. The revolution was mostly undertaken by the lower and working class, because it was common for the conservatives to be less wealthy on average during the reign of the šah. However, now that the conservatives have overthrown the šah and set up their religious policies, these not-so-religious-and-conservative upper class people felt they were being oppressed because of numerous new restrictions.
The events are focused on the difficulties of this new way of life,and they are reflected through the conflicts of Marjane. I was impressed by the power of dramatization used in the film, for instance the scene where Marjane starts using drugs. This caused at times a feeling of sympathy towards Marjane.
Even though the film was good at presenting an opinion, I still found it quite provocative. Even though it actually is an autobiography, I still didnt quite like some of the jokes shown in the animation, I just found them quite, disparaging.
It also badmouthed the other party, namely the muslims, which I found quite inappropriate, and even though Marjane is encouraged to maintain her Iranian identity, it is shown in the film that being an Iranian is somehow "bad". Of course this is in a way critisizing these opinions, it still showed that Marjane had succumbed to hide her Iranian origin.
Like or dislike? Id say that none of those. It wasnt anything special for me, even though it presented the idea in an efficient way, but it wasnt bad though. Id say it was ok.
A.T.
No, I'm not late at all with this one, it's only been three months :D I'm sorry guys, really.
ReplyDeleteSo, anyway, I liked this movie a lot. This type of movies (as in animations that are not just for kids but actually have something serious to say) is something I'm not familiar with but I liked it.
I really like how the movie was drawn (or made with computer, whatever) and the fact that it was mostly in black and white. That reminded of the fact that the movie was based on a graphic novel (and made me want to read it). I also think that the characters were pictured quite realistically with their both good and bad sides.
One of the best things about the movie was the humor and how funny it was at times, but how they still had managed to fit in the serious content about the horrors of war and civilians' suffering under the Iranian government. It was really heartbreaking to see how horrible the Iranian people's life has been and how during that time there was no progress but only regression in the rich culture and the conditions in which people live.
One of the main themes was freedom and striving for that, and Marjana succeeded in it only to find out that freedom could not brign her happiness as long as her family was still suffering. Another heartbreaking thing was her homelessness after returning to Iran, how she could not find a place where she would have felt home.
All in all, I think the film was great both as just a film and as a description about how the political situation has affected the ordinary people's lives.