Daily post 16 Oct 2007 08:12 am
Cooking Things Up
– Sunday night marked the closing of the NY Film Festival. The closing film of the festival was Persepolis, and it was reviewed in the NY Times by Stephen Holden. Here are a couple of quotes from his review:
Because it is animated, “Persepolis†is a bold choice for the festival’s closing-night selection. “A cartoon?†you may sniff. “How dare they?†But the movie is so enthralling that it eroded my longstanding resistance to animation, and I realized that the same history translated into a live-action drama could never be depicted with the clarity and narrative drive that bold, simple animation encourages.
“Persepolis†makes you contemplate the processes of history. Buried under each wave of “reform,†it suggests, are cultural traditions that will eventually resurface no matter how repressive the climate of the moment. The movie is also tacitly feminist in its depiction of Islamist patriarchs as ludicrous misogynist prudes.
“Persepolis†has a lot in common with last year’s closing-night film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,†which portrays life in the wake of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of girl who transmutes fear into ritualized fairy-tale fantasy. Both films are immeasurably enriched by examining war and social upheaval through innocent female eyes.
I saw the film last night and have had a lot of mixed thoughts about it. Ill report on those thoughts later this week after I’ve allwed them to settle for a bit.
Mark Mayerson, yesterday, found and posted some interviews with Marjane Satrapi answering questions at the NYFilm Fest. They’re worth a look if you’re interested.
- Are you interested in knowing what Chris Robinson‘s Mango Salad tastes like? Or would you like to know how Bruno Bozzetto makes Spaghetti and Meatballs. For desert would you like Jerry Beck‘s recipe for cupcakes?
The Art Institute of Pittsburgh has just such the cookbook for you. A bunch of animators have put their cooking thoughts on their favorite foods into menus for you.
Chocolate Crackel, Marillenknodel, Lamb Korma, Hot Cross Buns, Croque Monsieur, Fish Heads & Rice & Fried Bananas (yes animators are CWAZY!) These recipes are among many others in this great little book; the profits of which support the EDMC Education Foundation of the Art Institue of Pittsburgh.
To order the book, send checks or money orders payable to the
EDMC Foundation. The book sells for $10.
(Proper way to address the envelope)
Angela Love
Media Arts & Animation
Art Institute of Pittsburgh
420 Blvd. of the Allies
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
This is the Art Institute‘s site.
If you’d like to see an animated ad for the book go here.
on 16 Oct 2007 at 11:44 am 1.Ray Kosarin said …
PERSEPOLIS is (for me) an excellent, imperfect film. It overwhelmingly captures the spirit and look of Matrapi’s books, and fitting them to the film’s running time makes for a more economical storytelling which, more often than not, combs away loose narrative strands and strengthens her story. Occasionally, this cuts too close to the bone, as when her character’s short-lived marriage, already allowed short shrift in the book, is whittled down to almost nothing–an unsettling decision in so personal a memoir as this (we learn far more about an adolescent boy who jilts her, or even about her teenage infatuation with Iron Maiden, both very poignant, funny episodes in the film). But the film does keep nicely intact what is perhaps most special about the books: one girl’s deeply felt experience growing up smart in an oppressive theocracy, and having to make sense of her personal coming of age in the midst of war–actual, ideological, and political. This character’s recollection of these events–too insightful for an ordinary girl, yet too naive for an adult–is almost like something out of Dickens, and the clash between her youthful ideals and the indifferent world is revealing to us as we witness her struggle. A special, often beautiful, film worth seeing.
on 16 Oct 2007 at 9:52 pm 2.Thad Komorowski said …
Hey Mike, I can pick you up one if you’d like, it’s in the school store here.
~Thad
on 16 Oct 2007 at 11:45 pm 3.Michael said …
I have a copy of the book, Thad, butI don’t know how to tell other people how to get one. Thanks, though.
I think that’s a pretty good review, Ray. Concise and to the point.
I’m not sure I was really bothered by the short development and explanation for her failed marriage. The only moment, there, when I felt as though I wanted more was when she came home late to tell her husband she was leaving. His response made me wonder more about him than had been revealed to me. However that need to know more is something that exists in many of my favorite movies.
Mike Leigh tries to ensure that we know that his characters have an off-screen life that isnt revealed to the audience. He gives us what we need to know to get the story HE wants us to get.
I suspect the same is true here. Otherwise, there’s more I’d like to know about both her mother and her father. We know more about the grandmother than either of them.
I suspect the original form (graphic novel) has given the film some storytelling problems.
on 17 Oct 2007 at 11:19 am 4.Ray K. said …
Real food for thought, Michael–thanks. Mike Leigh, I agree, is a master at balancing what he shows with what he leaves unsaid (I don’t know whether you caught this screening, but Cristian Mungiu made a similar point in the Q & A after his fine FOUR MONTHS, THREE WEEKS, AND TWO DAYS, which also begins and ends with unresolved questions). More and more I’m coming to think that being brave enough to invite ambiguity into a story, and having the integrity to decide where ambiguity helps paint, rather than rob from, its truth, is the mark of a mature artist!