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I am not certain if the story told in Persepolis would have been as effective if it had been shot in live action compared to the animation that directors Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Strapi used to tell the story of Strapi's childhood and early adulthood. I mention animation because this story was originally a series of graphic novels (published 2000 - 2003) which follows Straphi's life up to the age of 24 when her parents sent her away from Iran for the last time to live in France.  In the last decade several movies have made the jump from graphic novels (or comic books) to live action to mixed reception. Men in Black was great and the Spiderman series has been very financially successful and Sin City was graphically incredible while others have fallen short. Persepolis remains in "ink" and is done in the style of the novels.

Strapi was born on November 22 1969 in Tehran, a few years before the fall of the Shah. When his reign of power did end in , Strapi's relatives were let out of prison and even thought that things in the country would change for the better.  Unfortunately they were seriously wrong and the country fell into another kind of totalitarian government, this one religious. Strapi's communist Uncle is again imprisoned and executed by the mullas leaving Strapi to wonder if there are any governments which is legitimate. In 1983, during the Iraq-Iran war, the bombs fall too close to the family home and her parents send her to Vienna where her familial political tendencies towards Marxist-Lennonism are fertilized.

Those junior and senior high school years can be difficult and isolating for someone in a foreign culture. As Marji (as she is known) goes through puberty we see in an amazing girl's eye sequence as she grows into womanhood.  Her first two boyfriends turn into major disappointments. One is gay, and she catches the other in bed with another girl.  Being away from family structure, those misfiring relationships leave her so depressed that she becomes homeless and through abuse and illness almost dies.  She travels back to Iran during a time when the moneyed classes live a secretive life - hiding alcohol, parties, and all things decadently Western.  Marji begins to attend college, where she is not the most "get along, go along" kind of woman which constantly puts her in a position of defiance.  She meets a man named Reza and marries him but feels quickly that at 21, she has made a terrible mistake. Big surprise, huh? What would YOUR life have been like if YOU were married at 21?  Her grandmother dismisses the relationship by saying, "The first marriage is just practice." The story ends in 1994 with the previously mentioned last trip from Tehran to Paris.

Chiara Mastroianni is the voice for the Marjane from her teens to adult and her real life mother Catherine Deneuve plays her mother in the film. Danielle Darrieux voices her incredibly understanding "wish she was mine" grandmother.  I have read that there is the possibility of an English language version of the film to take care of most lazy Americans who don't like to read their movies (yea, that's usually ME) and if it wins the Golden Globe for best animation that may happen sooner than later.

As I watched the blending of religious and political points of view, I could not help wondering what would happen if that happened in our country.  What would happen, if say, someone who did not believe in Evolution, or science, except when it suited them, took control of our government hiding behind, say, Christianity.  It immediately focused the importance of this film.