Because of the film’s graphic novel-based style, some of the scenes appear comic on-screen, which I find, to be worrying. I say this as one scene depicts a group of young children, led by Marjane, chasing a boy down a road with nails and chains in hand, shouting ‘poke his eyes out’, after hearing about a series of torture methods that Mjarjane’s uncle experienced in prison. This represents how easily children can be influenced by what adults have to say. I don’t think it would have mattered if young Marjane understood why that was happening to her uncle or not: It is the action that is provoked upon hearing this story that is important to pay attention to Does. Her uncle was placed in prison in the first place because of his decision to take action for something he felt strongly about (he decided to express his favours towards communism) and because the government didn’t like it, they put him in prison, expressing a corrupt scheme of government because he is being locked away for expressing his viewpoint.
Another thing that I noticed while watching this film was the large disrespect towards females. The story takes place over three decades, and this horrible and offensive attitude towards women remains the same throughout. Just before the film’s episodic transition occurs to take us into 1983, a man viciously comments that he takes women and ‘bang them like whores’. What this viewpoint represents is that some men of the decade strongly felt that women were no more than objects: there are many of them to go around so it is no problem if one goes missing: this man can find just another ‘whore’ anytime he wants. Even a decade later, in 1992, where Marjane arrives back from Vienna, she is told by on-street officers to wear her headscalf correctly: it is as everything has a correct place to be, and that variety is prohibited. The soldiers themselves all appear identical to each other, wearing the colours and same generic shape of body that suggests they have fallen to a dictatorship. Even more worryingly, some of the soldiers are very young (one was around the age of 16) which shows how much of an impact the Islamic fundamentalist government had had on the shape of society. However, Marjane is not afraid to take this issue into her own hands, and in one scene, during a school assembly addressing students of how to wear their uniforms (another victim of the new government’s ways), she confidently expresses her rejection to the idea of making women’s dresses appear shorter, while there was already an issue of women’s clothing appearing too short and skimpy. They have been drive to a losing state of field and she has the guts to speak against it.
As I have just mentioned above, a new police force consisting of the Iranian society was put in place by the new government, attracting a number of young men. There is one scene in particular where I think editing was used in order to represent the tension they create among the people around them. Alcohol had been outlawed during the start of there reign over Iran, and during a party, the cross-cutting sequence between the soldiers charging towards the apartment and the nature of the party really show how hard the government wanted to clamp-down on all wrong-doers. It appears on-screen as such a heavy tension builder, showing one state as a jolly atmosphere, where no one has a care in the world about what is happening outside (the party) and the corrupt authorities pacing rapidly towards a problem that they feel can only be delt with in an aggressive sense of attitude. In the end, they are able to drive one the attendees to death (he attempts to shift from roof to roof but misjudges his jump and falls) and they didn’t even have to shoot him down. This character I sympathise with heavily - he simply had no other way of escaping the problem at hand, created by this restrictive government.
As I have already mentioned, the film’s graphic novel style is what is most striking about the messages and themes addressed in this film. Political corruption, animated expressionism on faces and the influence upon children all occasionally appear comic at stages in the film, and what is worrying about this is that these are seriously relevant issues to today’s society that need addressing. I see this as a wake-up call, as by presenting these horrifying issues in this style, maybe audiences will take notice about what is happening in the Eastern world. Because the graphic novel obviously appeals a lot more to what is happening elsewhere in the world to the typical Westerner, maybe by sharing a story in this fashion will make the whole issue a lot clearer.
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