"A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"

To be honest, I left the theater feeling a bit confused. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” was billed as an Iranian Vampire Western. But the style was more like black and white French new wave – from the smoking cigarettes, the “Rebel Without a Cause” outfit of the protagonist (Arash Marandi), his 57 Ford T-Bird, even the striped shirt the aloof vampire girl (Sheia Vand) wears under her abaya. 

Shot in the California desert, it seemed to be more about an Iranian in the West, than a Western. Aside from the avenging outsider, there were none of the fixers of a Western - no shootouts, no barroom brawls.

All I could recognize as Iranian was the Farsi language and how the young vampire wears an abaya. In Iran, women must cover their bodies to keep men from sinning. Perhaps the film is commenting on how when, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” she is seen as a temptation. But in this dark fairy-tale, the girl is actually empowered by the abaya. She sports the abaya like a superhero cape, giving her the power to walk the streets unseen as she plays avenging angel, preying on predatory men.

Perhaps it is a commentary on modern Iran. The setting is Bad City – which is certainly how Iran sees America. The streets are full of “American vices”: prostitutes and pimps, a free-spirited transgender person, drugs, and violence. Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll. I suppose this could be a cautionary tale on the dangers of becoming too Americanized. 

Director Ana Lily Amirpour 

In an interview by Roger Corman, writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour spoke about how the movie was really about her and the loneliness she feels. It is about her Iran as seen by an Iranian expat in America. The setting is a lonely postindustrial living ghost town with a crumbling infrastructure, surrounded by stark desert with ominous oil pumps drawing black liquid from the earth. While great wealth is being made just outside its boundaries, the town doesn't benefit from it. Billboards taunt the citizens with products that few can afford. It seems that all the good has been sucked out of the town. The inhabitants are like ghosts of their former selves – before they became desperate drug addicts and street walkers preyed on by the bottom-feeder pimp/drug dealer. The loneliness is palatable as the characters are isolated by the secrets they keep. The vampire seems to feed on that loneliness.

The story takes a  bittersweet turn when this sad avenging angel vampire searches for some hint of hope for mankind as she follows a street urchin and warns him not to be bad like the other men in the town (or he might be her next feast). She makes a fleeting connection (over a shared love of rock music) with a young man who is trying to hold onto his last vestige of humanity as everything around him tries to suck it out of him. The film shares a similar theme with the, "The Babadook." This unlikely couple finds comfort in the shared connection of accepting their dark side.

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com 

"Persepolis"

I recently saw the powerful, Oscar nominated animated feature, "Persepolis" (98 minutes) at the Loft Theater in Tucson. Persepolis is definitely a love project. Marjane Satrapi, along with co-director Vincent Paronnaud, adapted her graphic novels based on her life story. "Persepolis," was painstakingly drawn the old fashion way with pencil and ink to create more expression in the characters. It is done in (mostly) black and white, two-dimensional animation. But there is nothing black and white or two-dimensional about this story of an Iranian girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution.

The movie begins with the fall of the Shah. Often, when we think of that regime, we think of the tyranny of the Shah and all the people he executed. But at this time, Iran was also very modern and westernized. Many Iranians enjoyed some degree of personal freedom. Eventually that freedom is completely taken away by the religious extremists. We experience this world through the eyes of the precocious Marjane - a well drawn character with her own weaknesses and childish perspectives. Along with Marjane, we get a history lesson about Iran and the Islamic Revolution from her father and uncle. Imaginative (and sometimes humorous) visuals add context to their narration. Young Marjane learns some hard lessons as the uncle she idealizes is imprisoned for fighting for freedom. Teenage Marjane must cover her hair and hide her love of Punk from the "social guardians". When she speaks out, her parents fear for her life and send her away to school in Austria. In this strange new country, she must deal with the challenges of becoming an adult, culture shock, and prejudice. Marjane becomes homesick for an Iran that is no long there.

Through this poignant and often hilarious film, writer/co-director Marjane Satrapi hopes to create understanding of what the Iranian people have undergone (see her statement below) and ensure that those who fought and died for freedom are not forgotten.

OSCAR UPDATE: Persepolis, written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Movie Blessings,
Jana Segal
http://reelinspiration.blogspot.com/Background from official website:

Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood (Pantheon, 2003, English version) and Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return (Pantheon, 2004, English version) won widespread acclaim in France, now her home, and around the world. Now, she has co-directed, with Vincent Paronnaud, the animated film version of her memoir.

The title PERSEPOLIS comes from the Persian capital founded in the 6th century BC by Darius I, later destroyed by Alexander the Great. It’s a reminder that there’s an old and grand civilization, besieged by waves of invaders but carrying on through milennia, that is much deeper and more complex than the current-day view of Iran as a monoculture of fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism.

“I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists,” Satrapi says. “I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.”