Like many coming-of-age films, soundtrack features prominently in Persepolis, but unlike most—there's something more powerful than nostalgia driving it. That's because when she was growing up in the 1980's, Marjane Satrapi would venture out into the black markets of Tehran to check out the cassette selection: Stevie Wonder, Julio Iglesias, "Jichael Mackson." For Marjane, the music of her youth was never determined by what happened to be playing on the radio that day. She went out looking for it. She risked her personal freedom for it.
Even as a young kid, Marjane gravitated toward the hard stuff—Iron
Maiden especially—and no wonder. She grew up during
a particularly dark and bloody chapter in Iran's history. The revolution began just as she was hitting the age of reason. Although Marxists had banded
together with the traditionalists to overthrow the Shah, the new republic was a strictly Islamic one, so many leftists were promptly executed, including Marjane's favorite uncle. Next, neighboring Iraq declared war on her country and for the next several years Tehran was bombed on a regular basis. Buildings on Marjane's block were leveled to the ground and her school was subject to frequent evacuations. By the time the dust settled, between 500,000 and one million
Iranians had died. Given all this, it makes sense that Iron Maiden's music would resonate strongly with Marjane. Songs like "Run to the Hills," "The Prisoner" and "Invaders" must have spoken directly to her experience of the world.
(By the way, as far as we know, no actual Maiden was used in the film. Instead, they use a Maiden-esque original track called "Master of the Monsters." Listen to it in iTunes.)
By then she had grown into a smart, increasingly vocal pre-teen who'd begun to have regular run-ins with Iran's Islamic gatekeepers. Her parents read the writing on the wall (and on their daughter's
clothes) and made the difficult decision to send her to Austria. Western freedom didn't dazzle Marjane as much as
she'd hoped, however. She was particularly disgusted by the affected, almost entirely unearned cynicism of her peers.
“Life is a void," complains one of her nihilist pals in Vienna. "When man realizes that, he can no longer live, so he invents power games.”
“Bullshit!” retorts Marjane. “Life isn’t absurd. Some people give their lives for freedom.”
Throughout Persepolis, Marjane's love of music illustrates just how empowering it can be in the midst of danger and repression...how music helps carve out space and sanity even in the most harrowing and restrictive circumstances. Back in Tehran, Marjane sings Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" to lift herself out of a deep depression, and there is something so moving about the way she belts it out in a heavy accent and off-key voice. She feels the song deeply and without irony. She's rising up. She's back on the street. She is recovering from the crippling
realization that she doesn't fully belong in any one culture or land, but she's gonna be her big-mouthed, bad-ass self anyway.
(It's nice to know, by the way, that the strange and enduring appeal of that song transcends nationality)
After getting her master's degree, Marjane Satrapi moved to France, but she never stopped considering her relationship to Iran..one she describes as "very profound." She also describes Persepolis as a "pro-Iran" film, despite the struggles that she and her family have known there.
"Out of respect for those who have stayed there, who share my ideas but cannot express them, I'd find it inappropriate and distasteful to be complaining. If I had given in to despair, everything would have been lost. So until the last moment, I'll hold my head high and keep laughing, because they won't get the best of me. As long as you're alive you can protest and shout, yet laughter is the most subversive weapon of all."
Go see Persepolis. It'll remind you not only of how meaningful music can be in peoples' lives, but how meaningful life is in general. It also features a fetchingly bittersweet score by Olivier Bernet, and some great performances by Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, and Gabrielle Lopes, among others.
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