Persepolis
dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
An adaptation of the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi,
Persepolis is a visually entrancing film. Drawn in big swaths
of black and white and embellished with thin curls of cigarette smoke
and cascades of jasmine flowers, the film reminds us that animation
doesn’t have to be Pixar glossy to work. The hand-drawn aesthetic of
Persepolis is exactly right for a traumatic, political
bildungsroman about growing up in revolutionary Iran.
Marjane is a little girl in late-’70s Tehran, who, having been
thoroughly indoctrinated by her teachers, loves her grandmother and the
Shah in almost equal measure. Her horrified parents and Communist uncle
soon set her straight, and little Marjane learns that adults aren’t
always right. Then comes the Islamic revolution, heralding an Iran in
which pop music and makeup can get you in serious trouble: Marjane
promptly conceives a passion for Iron Maiden. Up until this point,
Persepolis is awesome. But once Marjane leaves for Europe, the
95-minute running time starts to bear down and the story splinters into
a series of vignettes. Still, it’s worth it for the visuals.
As a side note, I know this was mainly a play for the best foreign
language film Oscar—which stalled when the short list was
released last week, minus Persepolis—but I’m thrilled
that American audiences are able to see this film in the original
French. The scene where the rebellious teen protagonist warbles “Eye of
the Tiger” in broken English couldn’t possibly be dubbed without
sacrificing its outrageous charm. ANNIE WAGNER
Read Annie Wagner’s interview with Marjane Satrapi here.
Grace Is Gone
dir. James C. Strouse
It’s John Cusack. He’s sitting on the couch. He’s just been told
that his wife, the mother of his two daughters, was killed fighting in
Iraq, and that he will be assigned a Casualty Assistant Officer. This
should be a recipe for maximum sympathy. Then you notice cake makeup
piled high on Cusack’s face—especially thick and grotesque around
the eyes. You aren’t trying to be a jerk, but the impression hits hard:
He’s faking.
The whole movie is a fake, charming though it may be in the scenes
that feature blissfully ignorant 8-year-old Dawn, played by Gracie
Bednarczyk, who could be forgiven for not realizing she’s in a sad
movie. For the first 80 minutes, Dawn and her sister are not told that
their mother is dead. Their father Stan (Cusack) takes them on a
carpe-diem road trip that involves driving the girls getting their
every wish granted (playhouse, ear piercing). It then climaxes in an
exuberant day at the Florida theme park Enchanted Gardens.
Enchanted Gardens looks chintzy. Also chintzy: every room of the
family home, fetishistically assembled in a series of unpopulated and
depressing domestic landscapes. This is pitiable Red America, scream
the filmmakers. Stan voted for Bush. He drives an American SUV with a
yellow ribbon sticker on the back and works hourly at The Home
Store.
More feature films should be about the everyday, regular-guy agonies
of Iraq and Afghanistan. But this one is cowardly. When Stan finally
tells the girls that their mother is dead, the sound fades out on the
dialogue as the girls break down. If this film were intended as an
allegory for—and an antidote to—our national denial, as
some critics have suggested, then the movie would begin here, not end,
with the volume up. JEN GRAVES
Teeth
dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein
The studiously insipid imagery, the ersatz “promise”
rings—abstinence-only education was way past due for a camp
takedown. What’s brilliant about the vagina dentate–themed
Teeth, which kicks off with an abstinence rally led by the
dewy Dawn (Jess Weixler), is that the conventions of the horror genre
put you temporarily on the side of the virginity hoarders. You want the
pretty young blonde to go all the way, but, ugh, you really don’t. Dawn
believes that young women giveth something special to the first person
they sleep with. At least in her case, though, the young woman taketh
away. Cue the first in a series of graphically dismembered penises.
Dawn is a sincere yet charismatic teen who lives in the ominous
shadow of a nuclear plant. At school, she’s mocked by boys who know she
spends her free time preaching chastity to adoring preteens. Finally,
she meets a young man who seems different from all the rest. They go
swimming near a notorious makeout spot, and he maneuvers her into a
dank cave. He pushes her too far, and snap! The grossout comedy
begins.
Before the cooter chomping starts in earnest, Teeth is
fantastic—thanks mostly to the wide-eyed Weixler, who seems to
set the just-this-side-of-earnest tone for the entire production. After
the first severing, though, writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein has
to up the ante, and Dawn encounters more and more repellent—and
less and less credible—sexual predators. Teeth quickly
turns ridiculous, but it’s all good clean fun. Bring the boyfriend!
ANNIE WAGNER
How She Move
dir. Ian Iqbal Rashid
Step was originally developed by and is still strongly associated
with black fraternities and sororities—so at first it’s a little
weird to see the dance form used as a signifier for the authenticity of
the projects. Raya (Rutina Wesley) attends the fancy Seaton Academy,
but when her junkie sister dies, her immigrant parents can’t afford to
keep her there. So she slinks back home to Toronto’s Jane and Finch
corridor, where she clashes with a childhood friend (Tre Armstrong),
who promptly challenges her to a step-off. Raya slowly regains the
trust of her peers and attracts the attention of a hottie with a gap
between his teeth—all the while studying up for a big scholarship
exam.
The only reason to watch How She Move is the elaborate,
thrilling dance routines at the climactic competition. The plot
stutters badly and the screenplay doesn’t try very hard to develop the
characters, but there are a few saving graces. Canadian-Caribbean
accents make the standard culture-clash storyline feel almost novel.
And Raya’s mother may be there just to hold Raya back and then suddenly
and inexplicably relent, but the slight, sympathetic Melanie
Nicholls-King makes that formula seem somehow sweet. ANNIE WAGNER
