Two Thumbs Up

Although there was only one option as to which film we would see after reading Persepolis I am really glad we were all able to watch the same movie. I saw the movie before I knew that Satrapi was the director and artist for the film. Once I did learn that information it definitely helped explain my reaction to the film. I was shocked to see the similarities between the movie and the book. Aside from maintaining the same kind of drawing style from the page to the screen, the plot was rarely changed. I saw the movie not even 24 hours after I read the novel and it felt like I was having the somewhat the same experience. For once the medium did not affect my feelings towards the adaptation. Perhaps it is my own personal reading experience with Persepolis, but how I saw the movie is how I read the book... if that makes any sense.
     When I was reading the book I felt as if Satrapi herself was telling me the story even though I was the one absorbing the words and turning the pages. With the movie I had the similar feeling that Satrapi was telling me what was going on throughout the whole film as opposed to having to interpret what was on the screen. I have no idea what this says about the book or the film. I have obviously read and seen many movies in which there is a narrator guiding the viewer or reader throughout the plot, but I have never had the experience of feeling as if I was being read to. It felt as if I were Marji and Uncle Anoosh was explaining a story. Even though I know the difficulty that comes with reading into words and illustrations reading/watching Persepolis was easy. I just did not feel my mind was having a work out or getting excited over the information.
     As far as the film, I thought it was an excellent idea to have the film be animated versus having actors perform on the screen. Having live actors would have altered entire experience for me even if the text had remained faithful to the graphic narrative. If the movie would have been created with real actors on the screen I think I would have either been overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions, or the actors could not have possibly conveyed the feelings behind the words as well as they should have. In my opinion it was safer choice for Satrapi to have the film animated although I found it really refreshing to see that the Marjane that was already in my mind because of the pictures was the same Marjane in the movie. I have honestly seen many many many film adaptions of books or graphic narratives but none have ever been as accurate as the film version of Persepolis.