Animation Theory 1 - 1

Our first Animation Theory lecture in the second semester was primarily an introduction to the module, though we also watched Persepolis, a movie which we briefly saw the beginning of in our Story module in the previous semester.

The movie deals with the experiences of Marjane Satrapi and her family during the time of the Iranian Revolution . In the opening, Marjane is in an airport and about to board a plane back to Iran when she begins to remember the events of the Revolution. The art style is simple, with thick lines. The present moments are present with colour (for example, Marjane's coat is clearly red) and the recollected moments are coloured in black and white showing a distinct difference between the two, possibly allowing for more coherency in the chronology.

Though the film is obviously a scathing criticism of Iranian society in terms of gender inequality, the film also puts forth a questionable representation of Iranian society prior to the events of the vast majority of the movie. In one part, Marjane is told by her father about how the Shah came to be and begins to tell the tale of how the British Empire manipulated the Shah into parting with Iran's oil and becoming an Emperor. Here, Iran is presented as a puppet lacking any autonomy and pushed along by the British Empire, backed not only in terms of story but also aesthetically, given that the animation changes to resemble paper cutouts.

I am also not too smitten with the American voice over as, if you did not take into account or were unaware of Satrapi's French citizenship, the film could easily be misunderstood to be in favour of American Exceptionalism, especially given the current trend of Islamophobia in Western Society. I personally think that subtitling the film or, at the very least, giving the characters regional accents would have been vastly more appropriate.