Iranian Official Singles Out Persepolis

Last Saturday, Alexis and I spent 6 straight hours at the movie theater. We started with Persepolis, then moved to the Oscar nominees for Animated Short and finished with the nominees for Live Action Short. I had no idea what to expect for any of them but I was genuinely excited by more than a few. Persepolis was one of them.

I knew nothing of the story when the credits started rolling. I hadn’t even realized it was animated until we were sitting the the theater. The simplistic visuals - flat black and white line drawings - were in sharp contrast to the complex storyline. The was humor and sadness, irony and exuberance. If you have a chance, spend a couple hours watching it, even if “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trashed it as ‘U.S. psychological warfare.’”

(Pssst, Mahmoud… I’ll let you in on a secret. The film is French, not American.)