"Persepolis" and the Transnationality of Foreign Film

 

With the world becoming increasingly globalised by technology and transport capability, new opportunities open up for many people to extend beyond their local surroundings, to the national and the global landscape. But as much opportunity as this transnational world allows, there are also obstacles and challenges that arise from the cultural and language barriers between nations, which can hinder the transnational from becoming truly globalised. This is evidenced by various foreign films that employ themes of internationality and one’s self of belonging in that international setting, such as the 2007 French-Iranian film Persepolis, adapted from the autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane “Marji” Satrapi.

The title of the animated film and the graphic novel it is adapted from is a reference to the ancient capital of the Achaemenid Empire (also referred to as the First Persian Empire). The title may have been chosen to allude to a grander past version of an Iranian city than the one that Marji currently lives in in late 20th century Tehran, the capital of Iran. It might also be subtlety referencing an ancient structure in Persepolis known as the Gate of All Nations, which was attached to the Apadana palace. Jenny Rose described the purpose of the Gate of All Nations in her book, Zoroastrianism: A Guide for the Perplexed;

“On the Gate of All Nations, through which all visitors to the royal palaces of Persepolis would have had to pass, Xerxes had inscribed: ‘I built this Gate of all Lands. Much else that is good was built within this Persepolis, which I built and my father built. Whatever good construction is seen, all that we built with the aide of Ahura Mazda.’ The gateway represents both a physical and figurative threshold expressing the Persian king’s function as perpetrator of ‘the good’ throughout all the lands of the realm, not just Persia. The implication is that this good activity, generated with the aid of Ahura Mazda, functions against both external and internal enemies including the forces of evil.” (Rose, 2011)

While the ancient Gate of All Nations acted as a hub for foreign visitors - thus an intersection of transnationalism - in the film Persepolis, it might be argued that the airport that Marji uses to travel to Europe might be considered the transnational hub in 20th century Tehran. This might be s stretch, though these hubs might be considered to have contrasting parallels; the Gate of All Nations is an transnational intersection that welcomes the world within the country, while the Tehran airport is the part of an external transnational intersection that allows Marji to explore the world outside of Iran.

The airports in the film also act as bookends to the three acts of the narrative. The film opens and closes in the present day at a Parisian airport, while the rest of the film is primarily told in flashback. The first act is Marji’s childhood in Tehran during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and explores her perspective on the Islamic Party’s rise to power and the Iran-Iraq War and how it is contextualised by her family. This act ends at the airport when Marji to sent to Vienna to attend a French lycée, which leads into the second act of the story, which sees Marji go through her teens and young adult years while attending the school, moving from home to home and interacting with different friend groups and her first two boyfriends. When her life in Austria becomes unbearable and unmanageable, she returns to Tehran and the third act begins with Marji arriving at the airport to spend some of her adult years back in the city where she grew up, before she leaves again for Paris, closing the third and final act of the film.

A continuing struggle for Marji throughout the film is the feeling of unbelonging wherever she lives. During her childhood, her identity is being forged by her family, particularly her grandmother, who is a voice of wisdom for her in childhood and in adulthood, and her Uncle Anoosh, whose political ideologies and activism is a source of inspiration for Marji. However, in the wake of the increasing radicalism of the Islamic Party’s reign over Iran (an internal or local threat) and the dangers of the Iran-Iraq War (an external, transnational threat), it becomes unsafe for Marji to remain in Tehran, which is why she is sent to Vienna for the rest of her education. While she was growing up, Marji is made to feel like an outsider because of her love of Western popular culture, such as Bruce Lee, Iron Maiden, and Michael Jackson, the latter of which nearly gets her arrested by the Guardians of the Revolution.

However, while living in Vienna, Marji still has some difficulty finding her place, despite her early insistence that she does, such as when she is at the alternative music club with her group of friends. She has difficulties with the language barriers outside of the lycée and in one encounter, she pretends to be French rather than be ostracised by the perceived view of Iranians. Despite finding some aspects of living in Austria that she can attach to, such as the music and television, Marji still feels outside of her surroundings; “Certain aspects of Western civilisation remains a mystery to me.” (Persepolis, 2007)

Even when she returns to her childhood home, Marji still finds herself an outsider, as she is made to feel marginalised due to her political and religious unorthodoxy and because she is a woman. After a series of incidents where she displays a rebellious, “political dissident” behaviour - such as when she speaks out against the sexist double standards at her university regarding fashion, and when she is nearly caught at a party with contraband alcohol - it becomes more evident than ever that Iran is not the place for Marji, and she must leave for Paris to avoid being arrested. At an earlier point in this third act, Marji’s narration conveys her sense of unbelonging more so by stating that she was “… a stranger in Austria, now I’m a stranger in my home country. …” (Persepolis, 2007) She is also told by her mother that she is not to return again to Iran, effectively making her an exile, which mirrors the story of her Uncle Anoosh, who too was an exile for his socio-political beliefs.

The transnational is present throughout the film on various different levels. The local Iranian culture is ever present, not just from the setting, but from the importance of pride and acceptance of one’s nationality placed upon Marji by her grandmother. Iraq makes its presence known during the war years and is presented as an external force that is affecting Iranian life and people dramatically. While living in Austria, Marji is studying and speaking French while attending the lycée while also learning to speak some German whilst outside of the school. Marji is also a huge fan of American and Western popular culture, most notably in her idolisation of Bruce Lee and her love of punk and heavy metal music. In the first act, there are also several references to the Soviets, especially through Uncle Anoosh’s Communist stance and his time of exile there, and Marji seems to view the Soviet Union as a society to emulate to some degree, mainly in the aftermath of the overthrowing of the monarchy.

The opportunities and challenges of the transnational landscape can be seen in other films with themes of the globalised world and one’s place within that world, such as the 1996 documentary film When We Were Kings by Leon Gast, which details the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974 Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo). The film includes themes of Pan-Africanism,  “a belief that African peoples, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.” (Makalani, 2011) This Pan-Africanism is linked to the ideas of the transnational, not only by how it links the newly decolonised nations of Africa in the 1950s and 60s, but how it links Africans and African-Americans, with Ali being shown as a key figure in this transnational link.

There are also some parallels that could be made When We Were Kings and Persepolis; both are based on true events (although the former is told as a documentary depicting the events as they happened, while the latter is a retelling of the events in an animated format), both have an Islamic figure as the central focus who actively embrace their faith in some way (Ali was born Cassius Clay before renaming himself Muhammad Ali, while Marji loses faith and turns her back on God for a time, before later finding faith God again - along with Karl Marx - in her adulthood after her attempted overdose), and both depict nations in some upheaval after a change in regime (the Republic of Zaire is ruled by a corrupt and brutal dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko after the country was decolonised from the Belgian Congo, while Iran is shown during the time of the overthrowing of the Shah regime and how it is replaced by the radical and theocratic Islamic Republic).

Parallels can also be made between Persepolis and the 2015 French film Dheepan, which recounts the story of a “family” of Tamil refugees who come to France to find refuge from the civil war in Sri Lanka. In Persepolis, Marji is sent to Vienna while the Iran-Iraq was going on, while Sivadhasan, Yalini and Illayaal flee the Sri Lankan civil war in Dheepan. This parallel goes further by the fact that in both films, the characters end up going somewhere by the conclusion, as their new homes are not ideal; in Persepolis, Marji returns to Tehran for some years before leaving forever for France, while the “family” in Dheepan immigrate to England to escape the crime war in Paris.

Both films also explore the challenges of the language barrier; in Persepolis, while Marji has some knowledge of the French language (hence why she is sent to a French lycée), she has trouble with the German language upon her arrival in Vienna, while in Dheepan, the “family” repeatedly have problems with the French language. It can also be argued that the characters of both films might also continue to have trouble finding their place in the world, as the endings of both films do not confirm the fates of the characters and whether they are able to settle down in peace - although outside of Persepolis, we know the fate of Marji Satrapi, as she wrote the graphic novel and co-directed the film. Hamid Naficy wrote on characters traversing the transnational; “Loneliness is an inevitable outcome of transnationality, and it finds its way into the desolate structures of feeling and lonely diegetic characters.” (pg. 7, 2001) This is very much applicable to Marji and the Tamil “family”.

In conclusion, the transnational globalisation of the world brings about many opportunities for people to explore new horizons, but this also brings with it many challenges, such as the internal struggles to honour the local culture while also balancing external factors from other countries and cultures. Persepolis primarily portrays the problems of language and cultural barriers that hinder the main character’s journey to find themselves and where she belongs. Dheepan follows similar themes of coming in contact with these obstacles, while When We Were Kings explores how new links and connections can be made by the transnational campaigns of the Pan-African movements of the 1960s. 

Bibliography

Audiard, Jacques & Caucheteux, Pascal (Producer), & Audiard, J. (Director). (2015). Dheepan. [Motion Picture] UGC Distribution. 

Baldassar, Loretta & Merla, Laura (Ed.). (2014). Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care: Understanding mobility and absence in family life Routledge.

Gast, L., & Hackford, Taylor & Sonenberg, David (Producers), & Gast, L. (Director). (1996). When we were kings. [Motion Picture] Gramercy Pictures. 

Makalani, M. (2011). Pan-africanism. Retrieved from http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-pan-africanism.html

Naficy, H. (2001). An accented cinema Princeton Press.

Kennedy, K., & Rigault, Xavier & Robert, Marc-Antoine (Producers), & Paronnaud, Vincent & Satrapi, Marjane (Director). (2007). Persepolis. [Motion Picture] Diaphana Distribution (France), Sony Pictures Releasing (USA), Optimum Releasing (UK). 

Rose, J. (2011). Zoroastrianism: A guide for the perplexed