Hacker Cinema
Persepolis
2007 · Film · 95 min
Directed by Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
11 positive3 neutralfrom 14 commenters
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14 comments on Hacker News
Besides her groundbeaking Persepolis, I was at the world premiere of The Voices, a wonderful black comedy, and got angry that the stupid distributor buried the film. We all loved it. Fuckers. She had a lot of problems to get her next films financed then.
I don't think it's fair to characterise all "comic book" films as being immature, although there's a lot of shallow super-hero films being pumped out of Hollywood these days. Maybe if more people in the U.S. were familiar with "V For Vendetta" (despite Alan Moore's loathing for that film) then their attitude towards government might well be different.
(Trying to think of another good example and the Watchmen series tackled racism head-on, also Persepolis is a great animation covering the Iranian revolution)
I am unsure... looking at pictures of iran in 1970 and they look quite happy being progressive back then. I could easily believe that people want to get back to to a similar lifestyle.
also see the movies : "my teheran for sale" and "Persepolis"
as much as I hate USA foreign policy, it is also possible that Iranians want peace and freedom outside of foreign interests.
not everything is black and white.
In Our Time has an episode on Persepolis [0]. Great episode of a great podcast.
0 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4z075
It's not sci-fi or fantasy, but I'd highly recommend Persepolis. A graphic novel about an Iranian woman growing up during the overthrow of the Shah in Iran, the Islamic Revolution, and the effects of their war with Iraq. It's very readable, has humor, but also talks about quite a few atrocities that happened (without really showing it, a lot of it is her talking to her family about what they've seen or certain people in her life leaving and never coming back, presumably because something terrible happened to them). It was eventually made into an animated movie also, but I liked the comic a lot better.
You might want to give it a read yourself before reading it with your kids, though, to make sure you think it's appropriate. But personally I could see myself introducing it to my kid when they turned like.... 10 or 11 probably, if/when I have one. It should be noted the woman is telling her story from the ages of 6 to 14 in the first book, so she had no choice but to be exposed to these things at a very young age.
Marjane Satrapi's awesome autobiographical comic "Persepolis" [1] also addresses this as the setup to the chain of events that would lead to Iran's current theocracy.
I recommend this comic as well as the movie based on it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)
You obviously need an education on the Middle East, I suggest you read this book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman, and watch the movie "Persepolis". The Roman Empire existed thousands of years back, the Iranian evolution happened in 78-79, and the after affects are still in play.
Tangentially related, but for an Iranian story of this generation, Persepolis[0] is a fantastic movie.
[0]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis
Those cartoons remind me of the Persepolis animated film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(film)
I really recommend watching Persepolis.
It kind of reinforces the fact that the distinction between "immigrants" and "expats" is largely income-based. It reminds me of the great animated film "Persepolis". When discussing leaving Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, the father of the main character replies to his wife "So that you can be a housemaid and me a taxi driver?" (they're both middle-class). If they left, they would be become immigrants. On the other hand, somebody in the western world from the middle-class migrating from one location to the other would expect to retain their social status and find an equivalent job. This kind of difference is pretty sad.
I didn't say that this article is manipulation, just that most people see such countries only through the news. I'm just saying that many countries with cruel laws have interesting and colorful cultures worth exploring from a tourist's point of view. If someone is not comfortable with that, ok, I just don't thing people should be discouraged by that because in the end, it's not the politics that suffer but natives (current example: outage of tourism in Syria, and a few years ago, in Nepal).
Persepolis was great, check out other modern Iranian and Iranian/Kurdish productions, there's a bunch of awesome cinema there, to mention the most known ones: About Elly, Separation, Time of drunken horses, No One Knows About Persian Cats, Women without men, and lots of other. If you want to read something lightweight where culture and regime meet, check Lipstick Jihad.
> I've never subscribed to the "citizens are actually good, it's the governments who are evil" argument, it just shifts the blame, e.g. "the Nazis did it" by reification: governments are made of people and they, more or less, are populistic, following the majority's wishes. There are many parts of the society in Iran that back the current regime, don't think that everybody's against it.
(Godwin's Law alert)
No doubt, but such events as nazis comming to power or the islamic revolution are subjects too complex to discuss here in a comment (at least I don't have the intention at the moment).
"Contrary to what popular media makes us think..."
What part of this news (or the many others about stonings, etc.) do you think is media manipulation? If you don't believe US media, get your facts directly from Iranians, there are ample examples of books and films (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stoning_of_Soraya_M., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Lolita_in_Tehran, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_%28comics%29 are popular examples) that can be used for this purpose.
I've never subscribed to the "citizens are actually good, it's the governments who are evil" argument, it just shifts the blame, e.g. "the Nazis did it" by reification: governments are made of people and they, more or less, are populistic, following the majority's wishes. There are many parts of the society in Iran that back the current regime, don't think that everybody's against it.
So, my reply to the grandparent comment would be: read more about the people and regime and if you are convinced, then, yes, do not visit Iran, boycott them by withholding your money.
That reminds me of a scene from that animation movie about Iran (Persepolis). There is a scene where someone can not get required heart surgery because the revolutionary party denies it - the person responsible for the decision is the former janitor of the person who needs the surgery.
In the same vein you want to leave it to trash men and cleaning ladies to decide what is valuable culture. I don't think it is a good idea (and I am trying hard to avoid Godwin's law here...).