Drawings drawn by hand

The animated film adaptation of Persepolis stays true to its graphic novel version. The characters in the film are identical to Satrapi's drawings in the book and are simple enough to distinguish the characters and their emotions.  The majority of the film is in black and white which effectively complements the simplicity of characters which adds to the overall mood of the film while contradicting the fact that Marji's life is anything but simple. What struck me most though, while watching this film, was the fact that all of the illustrations used were completely hand drawn. If you are familiar with traditional animation, you probably know how hectic and time consuming it is to produce a one-and-a-half-hour film with 12 pictures a second, but Satrapi has chosen to utilize this technique. One being the reason that it takes out the personalities out of her characters while making it more universal to watch, and two because unlike the flawless computer-generated graphics, the lines drawn by hand better reflects her characters' souls, especially given the fact that human beings are not perfect. If Persepolis had used real-life 3d style or real-life characters in its film, I probably would have not like it as much as I do now because it would lose some credibility.



What completely sets the film apart from the book, is its ending...

Color is added in this movie scene to indicate Marji's present life. This is the part where she is in a cab driving away from the airport. The driver comments on how bad the weather is and randomly asks where Marji is from. She responds that she is from Iran.  This was great way to end the film and is favorite part from the movie because it sums up the important life lesson that Marji's grandmother had always instilled to her: No matter where you are and whatever happens to you,  always remember where you came from. Despite the painful experiences that Marji has faced in Iran, she wants to let her audience know that she will never fail to look back to her roots.

Citation :
http://www.awdsgn.com/dailyjournal/jul08/images/070808_airport.jpg