Persepolis DVD, 2007

Comics are for kids and anyone who dabbles with comics who isn't a kid is an emotionally crippled adult-lescent (or whatever we're calling them this week) a la the Comic Book Guy out of The Simpsons. Right? Wrong. Pretty much since Alan Moore took the rule book and shredded it (dyeing it black to wear as a hilarious beard) way back in 1986 with the publication of the epoch-defining Watchmen (a graphic novel so good that Time magazine placed it within a list of the 100 best books - that's books, literature, not graphic novels - of all time), graphic novels have been changing. Aside from Alan Moore, of course (who is like Orson Welles if Orson Welles had gone on making films as good as Citizen Kane), you have people like Chris Ware (whose Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth was lapped up by Guardian readers), Charles Burns (who produces graphic novels that read like the equivalent of Pixies songs), Andrzej Klimowski (who has cornered the market on oblique East European Kafka-esque fables) and Daniel Clowes (whose classic, Ghost World, was made into a creditable film a few years back), amongst many, many others. You also have a fair few graphic novelists engaged in what can best be described as pictorial memoir (although this is a pretty wide catchment that includes everything from Joe Sacco's genius picto-journalism through Guy Delisle's travelogues to Alison Bechdel's family histories): this is where you'll find Marjane Satrapi.

Marjane Satrapi started out as an Iranian graphic novelist living and working in Paris. Persepolis (which was a graphic novel that appeared, over a period of time, in two volumes) charts her childhood in Iran, set against a backdrop of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and her adolescence in Austria, where she was sent by her parents when the situation became untenable. Ironically, it is in Europe that Satrapi's life arguably falls apart (although, again, it could be argued, the dissolution comes as a direct result of the effect of growing up in Iran, blinkered to certain things, rebelling against others). The graphic novels themselves were so good there was a feeling (among fans, prior to its release) that the film itself was a little bit superfluous. What was the point of taking these beautiful pictures and making them move? They already move, in your imagination. The film, it was felt, was the equivalent of remaking a foreign masterpiece for people who 'don't do subtitles' (or in this case, graphic novels).

The fact that Persepolis (the film) is something of a gigantic masterpiece, then (irrespective of whether you're a Satrapi fan or not), is tremendously heartening: yes it's a cartoon, animated (for the most part) in the bleak, vaguely Tamara Lempicka-esque art for which she is famous - but it's a cartoon for adults, set in a world that is both frightening and depressing (with adults sneaking around in the dark, to parties where contraband alcohol is served, urgent police raids spilling people into the night, Marjane and her grandmother emptying their illegal stash in the toilet while her mother and father diplomatically delay the law). The art that was so vibrant on the page comes alive on the screen via hilarious, beautiful and nightmarish dream sequences and pointed blasts of philosphical and political rage (Marjane as a punk is worth the price of admission alone). Still and all, the biggest revelation of the movie version of Persepolis comes in the shape of Marjane Satrapi's voice. As an author, of course, Marjane has a narrative 'voice' that you come to recognise as you read and re-read her books; but, in the film, you hear her, her smoky drawl, narrating the action - and for some reason this is perhaps the biggest added extra of all.

All told, Persepolis is a highly polished gem of a film, provided you're not one of those small-minded people who think cartoons are, you know, for kids. If you're of that school of thought, buy Persepolis now. I guarantee: if one film can change your mind about cartoons and graphic novels, this is it. It won the Jury prize at Cannes and also the BFI's prestigious Sutherland Trophy, awarded to the the maker of "the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year".

Peter Wild on 4th August 2008
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