My son and I saw this cartoon movie last week. It was brilliant even if not a great bundle of laughs. The cartoons are great art. And no GCI animation. This is an old-fashioned cartoon drawn with ink and each and every frame is worth all the effort.
Beginning in 1979 it is the story of a young girl growing up as the Iranian revolution breaks out. She is the daughter of liberal, westernised vaguely Marxist parents who have grandparents who were Persian Princes and Bolshevik revolutionaries!
The points are well made but there are one or two scenes where the writers soapbox shows. For example, in Junior High school our heroine argues against the history teacher when teacher claims how things were bad under the Shah: " you say that under the Shah there were 30.000 dangerous Marxist revolutionaries imprisoned; but now there are 300,000 political prisoners, including my uncle. How is that an improvement?"
There are many, very dark moments in this movie. As the grip of the revolutionary (see Religious) guards tightens on Tehrain it becomes a very dangerous occupation to be a woman. As for being a westernised, liberated woman... forget it.
The history of the war between Iraq and Iran (1980 - 1988) is not well known here in the west. What is not in doubt is how the western powers (especially USA, France and UK) sold arms to both sides without discrimination or moral scruple. One Million (conservative estimate) people on both sides were killed. The most poignant were the young revolutionary guards, boys of 13,14,15 who were recruited by the Iranian Mullahs. They were often given a small, plastic key which they were told was the key to paradise, and promised a martyrs death where they would inherit a harem of virgins. Sound familiar? Death was what most did receive as they were sent, en masse, in front of the Iranian forces to detonate the minefields and to bear the brunt of the firepower. Truly this is a regime of death, and not life.
Our heroine is driven out of Iran and into exile in Vienna. She becomes a young, liberated woman, has love affairs, gets her heart broken, spends two very bad months on the streets until she catches Pneumonia. She nearly dies but returns home where she becomes very clinically depressed by her expereinces. She goes to Tehrain University but she will not admit defeat. Instead, she cocks a snook at the religious authorities once too often. She has to go into exile, this time to Paris, where she still lives and works.
Altogether a film to make one think about what it is like to live in exile, to lose one's country, freedom, family. Although I would agree that the film succeeeds in making the Iranian into a human being, I came away feeling very angry at the nature of the regime in Tehrain with its misogynistic and doom laden religious oppression.
Go and see this movie but be prepared to be taken to some emotional places where you might not want to go. Laugh but feel uncomfortable.
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