Toronto and NYFF preview. Persepolis.

"Recounting her early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood living in (and out of) Tehran in the years following Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 Iranian Revolution, [Marjane] Satrapi's books - to borrow a phrase from Maus - bleed history, their raw confrontation of the monumental, tumultuous changes that swept the country during the 80s and 90s drenched in intimate, inflamed, and often unpleasant memories and emotions," writes Nick Schager at Slant. "They're stunning works of exposure, and thus it comes as little shock to discover that Satrapi's cinematic version of her stories - co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud - radiates brutal honesty. A hand-drawn 2D triumph produced in France (where Satrapi now lives) by the country's few remaining traditional animators, and shot primarily in black-and-white, Persepolis [site] feels ripped straight from its creator's heart, a sore, scathing, warts-and-all account of her formative years bolstered by its formidable aesthetic inventiveness, and elevated to the near-apex of its art form by its unguarded sincerity."

"The film is yet another standout in a year rife with ambitious animated films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Tekkonkinkreet and Paprika, but for my money it's the most consistent, humanist, and historically relevant of them all," writes Doug Cummings.

"More than anything, Persepolis shows us what happens when religious fundamentalism and intolerance - of any stripe - is allowed to be the foundation on which a country's leadership is built," writes Cinematical's Kim Voynar.

"It's a very personal and even profound story, and even though the movie loses some of the digressive, impressionistic structure that made the books so charming, it adds a sense of comic whimsy that a single drawing can't exactly replicate," writes Noel Murray. "Persepolis is a crowd-pleaser, and a model for how graphic novels can be filmed."

Also at the AV Club: "Persepolis could hardly be more winning," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "The overall impression to Satrapi's coming-of-age adventures is just how vulnerable the individual can be to the forces of history."

"A lot of films can break your heart - a precious few can enlarge and renovate it," writes Kenneth R Morefield at Looking Closer. Persepolis "is one of those precious few."

"Persepolis streams by in no time, yet manages to convey the sense of an entire childhood into early adulthood," writes Jim Emerson. "Upon getting back to my room I immediately ordered the books, Persepolis and Persepolis 2."

France is sending this one into the Oscar race, reports Alison James for Variety.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

Posted by dwhudson at September 26, 2007 1:50 AM