The Personal/Political & Surrealism in Persepolis

BLOG PROMPT     More on the style and imagery of the art: what do you think about the fleeting moments into surrealism (the burning theatre, the magic carpet ride, etc.) and how they complement/supplement the black-and-white visuality. What does this accomplish?  

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To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society (p. 115)

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I want to first say this: what an incredible and epic novel. Fast read. Riveting and sad. The storytelling: linear and simple, but still ravaging. The surrealist depictions of death really got to me. The parallelism between adolescent rebellion and a country in revolt deepens the structure and understanding of the novel, but overall leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. 

I want to somehow talk about the political and personal in the novel, tying together the parallelism of revolt in the self vs. the country, and talk about the price of freedom. I keep thinking back to The Time The Remains, a gorgeous and riveting film by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman, a semi-autobiographical narrative of a family's turmoil during occupied Palestine. I kept thinking of Suleiman's words:

Filmmaker: I’ve heard you say the idea of a national or Palestinian cinema is a bogus idea because it recreates the very thing it’s attempting to topple. Do you see film itself in any way, then, as a form of resistance?

Suleiman: Yes, like love is, or art. Any expression or aesthetic domain that’s exemplifying spaces of freedom is definitely a form of resistance. Laughter is, too. And poetry. That’s why authorities hate both. Film transgresses borders and checkpoints, so how come we need to have a national cinema?

There are countless moments in here that center on these moments of resistance and resilience. The secret parties, the hidden wine, the jokes in the grocery store, the attraction to American punk music, wearing Nikes, jeans, Marj's jean jacket and the Michael Jackson button. It reminds me of what Marj says after she is condemned by the fanatical women, rocking out:

"To each his own way of calming down."

All in all, it reminds me of what one must do to resist in the mind, or Bob Marley's lyrics:

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds."

Now, after I've gotten this out of me (excuse the haphazardness of this blog post), I'm ready to talk about the blog prompt and the fleeting moments into surrealism that bleeds throughout the narrative.

There are many images that haunted and stayed with me after I put this book down. The first image that created such tension was on page 15 of the burning theater-goers during the Shah's regime. It left me cold and speechless. Then, the imagery of the cut man in pieces as he lay in prison (52) unnerved me, and so did the the image of Marj and her classmates beating their chests (95), as well as the dying blue-class boys in the Key chapter (102) juxtaposed with Marj's dance party. But there were other images that stayed with me--happy ones--like then end of the revolution and the joyous crowd collage on 42, the family's sojourn to Europe on a magic carpet ride (77). The cartoonish, black-and-white topography creates an aura of emotional distance and refashions a childlike sense of looking at the world. The simplistic drawings and the bold strokes mixed with endearing drawings of God or the surroundings allows us to enter the narrative holding Marj's hand as she turns 6 to 14 years old. We are walking through her life as she does, naively and childlike, but we also feel the weight and burden that clouds and darkens her world as an Iranian growing up in ner nation's turbulent and atrocious history. We feel that pending tension. That pending darkness, like a dark cloud coming toward us. And then those images come, those stark, abrupt, surrealist and deadly images of people dying in explosions, a man cut up into pieces, a family on a magic carpet ride, or the shaded rubble and a glass bracelet belonging to Marj's close friend. These movements into the surreal appropriately characterizes the childlike rearing of pain. We come to understand the sociopolitical turmoil of Marj's world distinctly through her specialized eyes. That's what these images into the surreal accomplish: they create even more turmoil than the bolded stroke, the black empty spaces, the simplistic drawings of eyes and noses and smiles. In order to understand or least come to terms with the devilish disruption and madness her country is facing, Marj internalizes it and comes to expression, but morphs that expression into surrealist topography and deconstruction. 

Perspolis was such a masterpiece. I was moved, ached, and jumped to joy or escaped to sadness through Marj and her family's tale. I can't wait to read Part Two. And I also can't wait for our class discussion.

More on Tuesday,

~ Melissa