On Saturday 12 November 2022 the students of Evangeliki Model High School of Smyrna had the chance to attend in the school gathering hall the exceptional film ?Persepolis?, in the framework of the school action ?Cinema Club?. Through this screening the students learned the history of Iran during the last decades of the 20th century and reflected on the phenomenon of religious fanatism and the disrespect of the human rights and especially the women?s rights in this country. The A? Class student Rea Svigkou wrote about her experience:
The film I watched along with my classmates last Saturday in the school gathering hall is called ?Persepolis?. An animation film, which had nothing to do with the films we watched when we were young. Not because there were no brave heroes and heroines, wise mentors and monsters, but because the latter, the monsters, were not dragons but people. A kind of monster that doesn?t use its nails and teeth to ?exterminate? its enemies, but something else, even more destructive. This is called war.
To cut a long story short, I will talk about the film plot.
The main axis of the film is the internal political conflicts and the war that Iran experienced after the Shah?s overthrow, in the end of the 1970s (1979: Overthrow of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi by Ayatollah Khomeini ? 1980: War between Iran and Iraq), presented through the eyes of little Marjane Satrapi, a brave, lively and unusual, one would say, girl, inhabitant of Teheran and originated from Iran. Her parents and grand-mother, terrified by the horror and the cruelty of the civil war and shocked by the loss of their loved ones, decided to send their only daughter in Germany, thinking that there she will be safe and she will have a better life. So, away from her homeland, where after the end of the civil war bursts out the war with Iraq, the adolescent Marjane experiences her own internal ?war?. New and different companies of friends, changes in her appearance, love stories, conflicts, disappointments, homelessness? All these influence her psychology and urge her to make the big decision and return to her homeland.
So, reflecting over the film, I realise that what I could keep as a morale is the word that Marjane?s grand-mother repeated to her throughout the film and urged her grand-daughter to have as a guide in her life: integrity. Integrity towards the odds and difficulties that she faced, in her character and the decisions she made. Marjane was late in realising the meaning of this word. She was late in understanding the impact it would have on her life and her personality. In the end, though, she understood and respected it, she followed her grand-mother?s wish and accepted herself and her origin, overcoming her insecurities, as it is shown in her dialogue with the taxi driver in the end of the film:
- Where do you come from?
- From Iran?
Rea Svigkou, A? Class
We thank our student for sharing her experience with us and we also thank the school administration for offering the necessary equipment for the film screening.
We hope there will be more journeys in the wonderful world of the cinema through the screening of equally exceptional films.