Drawing from Life in Today’s Iran

Marjane Satrapi died this year, at the early age of 56. I knew her originally through her landmark graphic novel (she preferred to call it a comic book) which provides a vivid picture of her own eventful life story. Persepolis became an international bestseller, launching Satrapi on a major career as a writer, illustrator, and eventually filmmaker. From her adopted home in France she pursued her art, making sure none of us forget about the brutally disrupted lives of Iranian citizens who had once suffered under the Shah’s regime and then, even more so, under the theocratic rule of the radical Islamists who took power in 1979. Today, with the current U.S. actions against Iran threatening to become a “forever war,” there’s all the more reason to pay attention to Satrapi’s artistic legacy.

 It took me until now to watch the film version of Persepolis. I was prepared for the film’s story, but not for the beauty of its artwork, much of which conveys Satrapi’s eventful younger years in stark black & white. Her drawings, often done in silhouette and from distinctive angles, capture the stark lives of Iranian citizens, weighted down by heavy garments and denied the pleasures of secular music, dance, and jokes. She depicts herself as a perceptive and bold little girl, one who is quick to question a status quo she can hardly be expected to understand. Though her parents and wise grandmother love her dearly, they see how dangerous life can become for a child who is inquisitive and sometimes defiant. That’s why, at age 14, she is sent off to Austria, where she struggles to fit into a culture that’s hardly her own.

 Satrapi’s lively drawing pen shows young Marjane seeking companionship among Austrian dissidents and weirdos, initially pretending she is French-born. As she gets older, she goes through a series of not-very-welcoming landlords, and even finds herself  homeless for a time. A love affair ends in bitter disappointment, and at last—now a young woman with a distinctive beauty spot near her nose —she begs her parents to let her come back home.

 On go the chador and hijab. Like her Iranian friends, she tries hard to conform externally, while  secretly finding fun pursuing her western-style passions (which in childhood have ranged from monster movies to Bruce Lee to punk rock). But the government goons are always around, people important to her are disappeared or killed, and eventually she finds herself—after a tearful farewell to her parents and her soon-to-depart-this-earth grandma—boarding another plane, this time to France, where the real Satrapi happily lived out the rest of her life.

Frankly, I’m in awe of the skill that went into making this film, whose story is simple but whose artistry is certainly unmatched by anything Hollywood has to offer. That’s why the movie version of Persepolis (whose title reflects the ancient ceremonial capital of Persia) is so stunning. At the 80^th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 it was nominated for Best Animated Feature, making Satrapi (who co-directed with French artist Vincent Parenmaud)) the first woman ever to receive an Oscar nomination in this category. No, it didn’t win: the statuette went to another very special—and much less disturbing—film, Pixar’s Ratatouille. In Europe, though, Persepolis earned prizes galore, at the same time that it was banned (as anti-Islamic) from several international film festivals.

 I’d love to say that Satrapi lived happily ever after. But after her Swedish husband died of cancer in 2025 she had no will to continue living. The word is that she “died of sadness.”