Ill-Informed Gadfly

It feels churlish to say I was largely unmoved by “Persepolis,” that I found it a bit dull, that I was relieved when it was over. Marjane Satrapi’s animated chronicle of her escape from her oppressive homeland, Iran, illuminates some hard truths. It’s always disturbing to see people being persecuted or even killed for nothing more than a commitment to political dissent and religious freedom. If I’d been born in Iran under the Shah, I, too, would have cheered the end of his reign only to watch in horror as the ayatollahs took over, and where would I have ended up? Probably dead, in jail or in exile. Yet even as I felt in sync intellectually with the heroes, “Persepolis” kept me at arm’s length emotionally. Despite the stylishness of the stark, black-and-white animation, I ultimately found it uninspired. It’s that trickiest of genres, the biopic — or, more accurately, the auto-biopic — and it doesn’t solve the problem of how to wrangle a life into a swift and compelling story. Satrapi co-wrote and co-directed this very personal movie, which is based on her series of graphic novels, and her coming of age alone isn’t big enough to fill the screen. It unfolds as a series of disconnected episodes. There are few surprises; you can see the meager plot outline too clearly to remain riveted. Occasionally the images have a stark power — Marjane’s visit to her jailed uncle, the sequences depicting executions or the pointless carnage of the Iran-Iraq war. At its best, the animation mirrors Marjane’s state of mind, as when she swoonily recalls her first blush of love with a young Austrian, then sees the relationship in a different light after she catches her boyfriend in bed with another woman. Through the power of hindsight, her brilliant, handsome beau is transformed into a hideous, sniveling wimp. The movie comes to life when it illuminates the quirks of Marjane’s personality — her affinity for heavy metal and punk, her quick temper and scrappy attitude. At other times, though, she feels vague and unformed — a stand-in for every upper-class, secular, intellectual Iranian caught in the maelstrom of history.