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Persepolis
Sony Pictures Classics

Persepolis reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 90 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.1 out of 10
based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 27 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material including violent images, sexual references, language and brief drug content

Starring Catherine Deneuve, and Chiara Mastroianni

Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of the precocious and outspoken 9-year-old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power--forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, Marjane outsmarts the "social guardians" and discovers punk, ABBA, and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war, the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable. (Sony Classics)


GENRE(S): Animation  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Marjane Satrapi (novel, comic & screenplay)
Vincent Paronnaud
 
DIRECTED BY: Vincent Paronnaud
Marjane Satrapi
 
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: December 25, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: France / USA 
LANGUAGE(S): French / English / Persian / German 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Newsweek David Ansen
It's not to be missed in any language. In a year that has given us such marvelous animated movies as "Ratatouille" and "Paprika," this vibrant, sly and moving personal odyssey takes pride of place.
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100
USA Today Claudia Puig
Cinematic poetry in black and white. It also is a deeply affecting tale of the power of resilience and an unflagging sense of humor through the worst of situations
Read Full Review
100
Slate Dana Stevens
A completely different kind of animated movie that, even more than "Ratatouille," reimagines what the medium can do.
Read Full Review
100
Premiere Glenn Kenny
While avoiding specious bromides about universality, Persepolis insists on communicating with its audience, and insists that communication and empathy are the keys to our survival.
Read Full Review
100
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The movie sparkles with witty self-awareness.
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100
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
If "Ratatouille" taught the world that rats have feelings too, Persepolis teaches the same thing about the people of Iran, who in the current political climate are probably in greater danger of being eradicated.
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100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
While so many films about coming of age involve manufactured dilemmas, here is one about a woman who indeed does come of age, and magnificently.
Read Full Review
100
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Persepolis, the superb film based on Satrapi's graphic memoirs of the same name, is a riveting odyssey in pictures and words. It's unlike any journal you've read or any animated movie you've seen.
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100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Fascinating memoir of coming of age in Iran.
Read Full Review
91
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
In a stroke of voice-casting genius, the voices of Marjane and her mother are provided by real-life mother and daughter Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, respectively, both of whom bring heft and measured emotion to the characters.
Read Full Review
91
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
The two main points Persepolis makes are that strife is relative, and all politics are personal.
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90
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Persepolis, austere as it may look, is full of warmth and surprise, alive with humor and a fierce independence of spirit.
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90
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Satrapi’s parents ship her off to a French school in Vienna, but she’s rudderless, ungrounded. She’s drawn back to a devastated Tehran, where she can’t design a life, either. This great film, by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, is that life, designed. It freed her mind; it frees ours.
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90
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The filmmakers were right to believe that a live-action version of this story would have failed to achieve the universality Persepolis does.
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90
Variety Lisa Nesselson
This autobiographical tour de force is completely accessible and art of a very high order.
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90
Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
Persepolis is a small landmark in feature animation. Not because of technical innovation--though it moves fluidly enough, and its drawings have a handcrafted charm forgotten in the era of the cross-promoted-to-saturation CGI-'toon juggernauts--but because it translates a sensitive, introspective, true-to-life, "adult" comic story into moving pictures.
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90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A dazzlingly smart and entertaining animated feature by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, looks like a black-and-white graphic novel come to life.
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89
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Though you might have a hard time discussing some of the film’s verbal descriptions of torture with young ones, Persepolis will prove a worthwhile movie for thoughtful teens.
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88
Boston Globe Ty Burr
They're both tales of growing up in the shadow of Islamic fundamentalism, but Persepolis is everything "The Kite Runner" is not. It's a personal memoir rather than fiction, coolly observant instead of melodramatic, female rather than male in sensibility and sense of humor - it has a sense of humor.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson
Without significantly changing the books’ content, they bring in a wealth of emotional tones--particularly a playful, wry humor.
Read Full Review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Persepolis is as modern as tomorrow's headlines and as classic as an ancient myth.
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88
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The black-and-white animation won't dazzle your eyes, but everything else about Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's adaptation of Satrapi's graphic comic book series Persepolis will hold you in its thrall.
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88
TV Guide Ken Fox
The French-language voice cast is first-rate, although the film will also be released in the U.S. in an English-language version featuring Sean Penn, Iggy Pop and Gena Rowlands in addition to Deneuve and Mastroianni.
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83
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
You can learn about the grand shifts of history from Persepolis, but you learn about a handful of lives as well.
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80
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie, while no fun, faces hard truths and asks hard questions.
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80
Film Threat Rick Kisonak
The combination of pen, ink and geopolitical strife have yet to yield anything quite like it.
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80
Empire Helen O'Hara
The monochrome animation is stark and beautiful, and Marjane’s an appealing narrator. Often hilarious, sometimes tragic, this may be low-tech, but it’s high-class.
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80
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
A familiar story set in an unfamiliar context, it's a paean to the universality of human experience, a testament to the endurance of individuality during great political and fanatical upheaval, and a reminder that even the most complex situations, identities and stories are heartbreakingly simple.
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75
New York Post V.A. Musetto
It is a vivid, at times heartbreaking, portrait of a life and a nation in crisis.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It's striking how much emotion Satrapi is able to convey through blocky drawings.
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70
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
There is no denying the boldness of Persepolis, both in design and in moral complaint, but there must surely be moments, in Marjane’s life as in ours, that cry out for cross-hatching and the grown-up grayness of doubt.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

John B. gave it a10:
Persepolis is so full of ideas. It might not be groundbreaking in animation but there was a lot of creativity put into this. Of course, you can't help but get tied into the struggle of Marjame because we are shown such a realistic character. Marjame's interpretation of the world around her is put to the forefront instead of the political struggles in Iran. I would agree that it felt a bit like a series of diary entries but thankfully introspection is kept to a minimum and we are allowed to simply witness the events in her life more. It was a good mix between being on the outside looking in at Marjame's struggles and being on the inside looking out. The moral here is that no one when presented obstacles in life is perfect and there is nothing you can do to make things better. It may have been a typical coming of age story in some aspects but it was also this realization that no matter what, you can never truly identify with a world that can't really identify you. More likely, you will have to fabricate your own identity like Marjane had to. This is not one to miss. It couldn't have been better presented.

Maryam B. gave it a10:
Excellent movie containing the best plot, best animation, best content, and worth to see.

Nick A. gave it a10:
'Persepolis', a wonderfully visualized gem, manages a multitude of on-screen miracles, though its most accomplished feat is interfusing frivolous humor with a remarkably distressing, yet equally inspirational coming-of-age story. Based on director Marjane Satrapi’s own graphic novel, Persepolis bulges out of the screen with style and wit that scream with originality and heart, making it an epochal work, in addition to being an immensely enjoyable, creatively unparalleled one. An autobiographical account of Satrapi’s life leading up to her early-twenties, this film depicts the dawdling growth of its protagonist, her family, and their Central Eurasian country of Iran during the time of the Islamic Revolution, whereupon women were forced to wear veils to cover their heads and countless citizens were taken captive for no lesser reason than to force upon their country oppression. Marjane is a rowdy 9-year-old Iranian girl, whose parents’ desire for political change is shared by Marjane’s uncle, Anouche, a Communist leader against the dictatorship of Iran’s monarch, the Shah, whose rule would cease in 1979 and later be replaced by a republic. After being freed from prison in the early ‘70s, Anouche visits Marjane’s parents and later obliges Marjane’s eager wish to hear all about his political activism; and he tells her of the proletariat for which he fought and a period in which he fled Iran for Moscow, where he studied for self-betterment. Yet, sooner than later, Islamic fundamentalists arrest him and sentence him to death. Devastated by the news, Marjane’s only source of solace comes when Anouche chooses her to appear as the single prison visitor he is granted before his execution. Over the years, that minimal feeling of comfort outlines everything in her life, leading her into a rebellious rage that amounts to her public insubordination of the Islamic regime’s laws—she frequently takes off her veil or replaces it with a headscarf; she wears Adidas rather than that which is allowed; and she sports a leather jacket with “Punk Is Not Ded” embroidered on the back. In addition to her outlandish individual behavior, Marjane develops an ear for “insurgent” music from bands such as The Bee Gees and, eventually, Iron Maiden (which wonderfully caps a truly memorable set of scenes). When the danger of the Iran/Iraq war reaches alarming heights, Marjane is sent to Vienna from Tehran, where she had been schooling. As a teenage Iranian girl in Austria, she becomes the target for much racial intolerance, which slowly chips away at the slight comfort she felt when she last saw her uncle, Anouche. Feeling rejected by her peers, her government, and even her parents, Marjane stoops to lower grounds, as she builds friendships with a rough crowd that spends its nights at underground metal concerts and advocates anomalous, if not completely absent, social values. She quickly realizes that her place is not with the crowd that she’d been a part of, and returns to Iran to start over with the support of her family right next to her. She builds and strengthens her relationship with her parents and, more noticeably, her grandmother, a sweet, chipper, free spirit whom Marjane looks to for direction and tranquility. Despite having suffered a few disastrous love relationships, Marjane, now out of her teenage years, falls in love with a man whom she marries quickly. As that marriage snowballs into staleness (as would only be appropriate for the film’s continuity), it is again her grandmother who is there above all else, advising her to make a mature decision regarding the outcome of her and her husband’s marriage as an independent woman with integrity. She does; and, as long as it took, Marjane finds herself and finds happiness, ironically through a string of tragic events that culminate with the death of her grandmother and a plane trip to France. With the help of co-director Vincent Paronnaud, also a graphic novelist, Satrapi manages to make this painstaking story of hope lost and hope found one that gleams with symmetry and visual sublimity; and she does so using mostly shades of black and white. (Taking lessons from the school of Steven Spielberg, Satrapi and Paronnaud also use the color red, though do so limitedly and, like Spielberg, to astounding effect.) Moreover, the film’s narrative is both educational and enthusiastically delivered (Chiara Mastroianni brilliantly voices Marjane as a teenager and young adult), often concealing the gravity of the film’s sequential grimness, which, as a result, never feels as severe as it should. As a moviegoer, 'Persepolis' created within me a crushing feeling of ecstasy; it couldn’t have possibly been more perfect of a watch. In fact, 'Persepolis' is not just a film fit to stand the test of time, rather it’s one best suited to stand against time with the same thunderous defiance as its bright, spirited main character. This debut from both Paronnaud and Satrapi is anything but something to be taken lightly; it sings to the impossible pitch of true life transformed into the very truest art form, laced with inspiration beyond that of most films—or works of art—that one may ever have the thrilling opportunity to witness for oneself. 'Persepolis' is really one-of-a-kind; and as a recognized motion picture, that’s a crowning accomplishment.

Scott R. gave it a7:
Over-rated!!! This is a slow movie with too much history lesson. The trailer was lots of fun, the actual movie must have dragged on nearly 2 hours. In that 2 hours, we got fun and pensive stuff about 30%-40% of the time. Slow, slow slow. Think of it as a French movie, then your expectations won't get in your way. Wow, once more, I say it is OVER-rated by the critics...

Danny M. gave it a9:
The main issue with Persepolis is that it shows how things used to be in Iran, and then it shows how much it changed. The artwork is simplistic, but it's still damn good.

Paul C gave it a6:
I think it's a bit over-rated. The story and pacing are uneven, and the plot just peters out at the end. I would've liked more on living in Iran and less about how the character felt alienated from the world. Seriously, what makes you so special?

Chad S. gave it a10:
If 2-D animation is dead, then "Persepolis" is a dead man's party. While "Shrek" gorges himself on Bambi and all his forest critter friends, filmmakers like Satoshi Kon("Paprika", "Tokyo Godfathers") and Sylvain Chomet("Les Triplettes de Belleville") continue to work in the cel tradition. "Persepolis", however, could be said to have precious little, if any, of "Steamboat Willie['s]" DNA. Like Jessica Yu's "In the Realms of the Unreal"(the 2004 documentary about outsider artist Henry Darger), "Persepolis" takes static imagery(in this case; the illustrations from a graphic novel, in the Yu film; Darger's paintings) and transforms them into a meditation on kinesics. The results are truly startling; Iran and France rendered in a phantasmagorical world of black and white. The intermittent use of color is used to differentiate the past from the present, but it's also a commentary on how Marjane's life in her homeland and adopted home covered the full breadth of experiences in both geographical instances. Don't readily assume that Marjane's life in Iran was all bad, and her move to France was all good; only our president sees things in terms of black and white. Our president, our country, in which "Persepolis" sneakily characterizes as being the devil, and the devil's lair. Marjane(voiced by Chiara Mastroianni) listens to Iron Maiden, a band from Sheffield, England that purportedly worships the devil(well, they did release an album entitled "The Number of the Beast"). In other words, Great Britian is in cahoots with the United States, or, "the devil", as we are known to our international neighbors.

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