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Just what we’ve all been waiting for: the animated version of Persepolis is being screened at Cannes this week, and that means it should get a general release later this year. There are some great trailers on Satrapi’s MySpace page that include some pretty sweet air guitar and “Eye of the Tiger” renderings by the protagonist. As we mentioned in our Chicken with Plums review, there was a great article on Satrapi in the Independent last year, and more recently, a really good article about Satrapi in the NYT in January (behind the great wall, unfortunately), that has a lot of details about the production, including this bit:

The voices were recorded before the animators began work, with Ms. Satrapi coaching the actors one on one. (Aghast at the prospect of bossing Ms. Deneuve around, she said, she downed three cognacs before directing the actress, who turned out to be ”funny and intelligent and a big smoker.”) Ms. Satrapi allowed herself to be recorded while acting out the physical gestures for each scene, to give the animation team a physical reference.

”We could do any number of movements to coordinate with the words,” said Christian Desmares, the chief animator, ”but Marjane wanted to really personalize each character, to use precise Iranian gestures. And we don’t know how to do that.”

Ms. Satrapi interjected: ”I play all the roles. Even the dog.”

The stills from the movie posted to the official website suggest an interesting mix of styles, with the characters drawn faithfully in the mold of the original comics, and the settings and backgrounds done in a more ‘realistic’ mode, perhaps to give the action some dimensionality to move around in. The look it produces seems almost like a visual joke about bringing cartoons into live action films (à la Spiderman, etc.).

Chicken with Plums, by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon Books, 2006), $16.95.

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Gadzooks! Every time you turn around these days there’s a new Marjane Satrape graphic novel for sale. The graphic novel translator’s league must be burning the midnight oil at HQ in the North Pole churning out translations of our favorite French cartoonists in English, Spanish, Italian and God knows what other exotic languages. I was confident that I would adore Chicken with Plums before I had even picked it up off the display in the comic book store, as I am an ardent fan of all Satrapi literature. I probably would have given the book five chapatis whether or not I liked it, just because I haven’t written reviews of her other books and they all deserve five hot buttery chapatis. I was not disappointed, however, as this novel is most excellent and should be read by one and all. Its only shortcoming is its length, which is short, affording the reader far too little time in the gracious ambience of Satrapi literature.

I will not speak of the plot of Chicken with Plums here, except to say that it is about Satrapi’s great uncle, who was a musician. I’ve noticed that all the reviews I’ve seen so far, as well as the dustjacket of the book itself, give away the entire plot and premise of the story, leaving the reader no surprises at all except for a few details here and there. It has been called an Arabian Nights tale and an autobiographical novella. The reviews have even gone so far as to catalogue all the narrative devices Satrapi has deployed in the book so that no one will be forced to strain his or her intelligence by identifying a particular kind of flashback or like device. But there’s a reason for all that spoilerocity. Graphic novels are very hard to understand without guidance. Some of the elements of storytelling that could be made simple and straightforward by means of written language have been obfuscated by the insertion of pen and ink line drawings. Illustrations are unnerving. They may seem simple, but we all know artists are tricky and who knows what they are telling us subliminally. For example they may be compelling us to go throw a homicide bomb at someone or to get up and get a large popcorn and soft drink beverage at the concession stand.

Granted, Satrapi herself reveals almost the entire plot within a few pages of the novel, but that revelation comes as a complete surprise if you have restrained yourself from reading the dustjacket. I felt a sense of shock when the primary punchline was revealed early on, something like walking down a path on a sunny day in anticipation of a long, happy hike ahead, and then suddenly realizing that the path is actually quite short and leads up to the edge of a cliff, and for the rest of the day you must walk along the edge of the cliff and accept the fact that the day will not turn out as pleasantly as you had expected. Now that’s storytelling!

I’ve noticed that many reviewers claim they enjoy Satrapi’s work because it is ‘universal.’ Some people like it because it is a ‘window into life in Iran during a time of political turmoil.’ I like her work because she tells very interesting stories and draws beautiful, sharp and extremely well designed panels. And all the while, she makes it look simple, unlike her mentor, the phenomenal David B., who makes it look really hard. I suspect both of these affects are an illusion that they have cultivated, but while david b.’s drawings make you feel like your eyes are going to pop out of their sockets and force you to put the book down periodically just so you can have a time out, Satrapi’s strips draw the viewer smoothly along with the narrative.

I’ve included two examples of her drawing with this review. One above, that shows her velvety narrative progressions (as well as her velvety use of line and solid shapes), and the one below, which is a single panel from the French version and mingles major character revelations with a remark on flatulence. I thought by including the French version, I would a) not be giving out spoilers to the readers who don’t know French, and b) demonstrating how sophisticated it sounds to talk about flatulence in the French language (if you are not French).

To read more about Satrapi, check out this excellent Independent interview (thanks Quizman!). My favorite quote:

In Iran, if a man touches you, you have to hit him. If someone touches me up, I punch him in the mouth. It’s that simple. It happened to me in the M√©tro, when I first came to France in 1994. So I hit the guy. The whole carriage was gawping at me as though I was crazy. He started it. I’m not saying I’m a feminist. If a woman touched me, I’d hit her too.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for the animated version of Persepolis, narrated in French by the likes of (chain-smoking and ravishing) Catherine Deneuve. I’m reluctant to accept that it could be a good thing to make Persepolis into an animated feature, but it’s being directed by Marjane Satrapi herself, and not Disney or Pixar, so it won’t have voice-overs by Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy or Lindsay Lohan, one hopes.

Was I the last person to find out that the Iranian pop diva Googoosh is making a comeback and living in the United States and Canada now? I have painted her portrait in honor of this exciting news. There are all sorts of delectable websites devoted to Googoosh, including her own, official site, and Googoosh TV which includes loads of MP3s.

I first learned about Googoosh about six years ago, when I saw a terrible documentary about her. The film was focused on post-Revolution suppression of her voice and, more importantly, the filmmaker’s obsession with Googoosh as an absent presence and a pop icon. He was unable to or not allowed to interview Googoosh for the film, so the whole thing ends up being about her absence and her silence, only not in a way that could be described as interesting or artistic. The overall effort reminded me of a translation of a Marathi short story I read years ago by Vilas Sarang, in which a historian takes a tape recorder around to all the Indian monuments and ‘records the silences’ of the historical sites.

The Googoosh documentary seems to now be available on DVD. I think this is the same one I saw, though from the Amazon reviews it is, as always, hard to tell whether something is bad or good. Highlights include:

-This film is an insult to Googoosh and to filmmaking.

-If we give the content to a professional editor and producer they probably can make a good 45min documentary out of the whole 150min repeated content so if you are familiar with home video editing it worth buying the DVD and editing it yourself!

The film was in fact ‘hamstrung’ by the complete absence of Googoosh. I came away wondering what she looked like and what her music sounded like. That’s how I became a fan, so maybe it was worth something. But apparently, right around the time that the documentary was released 2000, Googoosh was finally granted a passport by the Iranian government, allowing her to travel outside the country and perform. Since then she has recorded a couple of new albums and has even settled down in Tehrangeles. Perhaps Mr. Zamani should now re-edit his film to make her absent presence present.