Spotlight on: Persepolis and The Benefits of Film Adaptation

Spotlight on: Persepolis and The Benefits of Film Adaptation

A trend has developed in recent film adaptations of graphic novels that worries me. Popular films such as Sin City and 300 are panel-to-panel exact copies of the novels they originate from. While this is often fun to look at and even amazingly done in most cases, it has led to a movement that worries me. When I think about adaptation of a novel, I imagine something that takes from the book, but also has an identity of its own. Recently a film adaptation of the critically acclaimed Watchmen graphic novel went into production. Director Zack Snyder, a big fan of the book, admitted that he would have to make a few changes in order for the novel to work as a film. There was a major backlash. People cried that Watchmen was unadaptable if the entire novel couldn't fit into one film. I say, why can't anything be changed? The medium of film is just a few steps above the experience of reading a comic book style novel, but the story can benefit so much from having visuals and narration separate from each other that it can create an entirely new experience altogether. The film that showed me that a graphic novel adaptation can have several omissions and changes from the book and still be a great experience, and even improve upon the novel in some ways, was the animated film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's autobiography graphic novel, Persepolis.

Persepolis tells Marjane Satrapi's story of growing up in Iran and later Austria from the 70's up until present day. It addresses the political conflict of Iran and the sadness of a girl who has to grow up so far away from her home and her family. Eventually Marjane returns to Iran to see that the home she so longed for, no longer exists. There are three specific examples of benefiting from film adaptation in Persepolis. The first being after a scene in which Marjane overhears some girls at a cafe talking about her. The night before Marjane had pretended to be french while a guy hit on her, the girls at the table across from her were laughing at the thought of her pretending to be French. She angrily walks over to the table and yells "I AM IRANIAN AND PROUD OF IT!" and storms off. Now in terms of the book and the movie, there is no difference in this portion of the scene, it is a word for word copy. When we see Marjane thinking about the incident later while walking down the street she is reminded of her grandmother, and what she would think about Marjane pretending to be French. In the book what we see is Marjane's narration simply state that she was reminded of her grandmother and how upset she would be if she found out about Marjane hiding her Iranian heritage. In the film however, we are treated to a scene that replaces the simple narration with an artfully done scene where Marjane's shadow turns into the shape of her grandmother, and Marjane shares a discussion with grandmother's shadow that looms over her, disappointed in her for denying her roots. The creativeness of the scene along with the beautiful black and white 2D animation that keeps the movie still looking like the book, adds so much to the novel that we couldn't get before.

The second example is a musical number that happens shortly after Marjane attempts to commit suicide. In the novel it is shown over several pages how Marjane improved her life, going to school, starting up a dancing class, and just learning to be happy again. At one point in the book we see a radio in the studio of Marjane's dance class that has "Eye of the Tiger" playing. In the movie however, these pages are molded into one sequence where Marjane sings "Eye of the Tiger" as she improves her life in various ways. This is easily the most uplifting part of an often depressing movie and it expresses the happiness of Marjane much more fully than the novel. The third example is the largest. For the film, an entire extra layer of story was added with Marjane sitting in an airport in present day, thinking about her life. This provides an explanation of where the narration is coming from and a much more satisfying, if not more depressing ending than in the novel. It also provides an added artistic quality, as the present day scenes look beautiful with their partially colored in look. The only real advantage that the novel has over the film is that it can present a more detailed and long look into Marjane's life and that it can provide notes on specific events. Many times throughout the novel Marjane makes notes outside of the panels giving cultural information to explain certain events. Such as in a scene where one of the nuns at the board house Marjane is staying insults her in a different language and specifically calls her foreigner in a harsh tone. A similar event happens later involving her then boyfriend's mother. In the novel there is a note explaining the specific meanings of the words and often add some more humor or insight to the situation. Of course this cannot happen in the film and through careful changing of dialog, it is ommitted.

Besides those two minor differences, Persepolis really stands a strong companion piece to the novel. I can only hope people become more accepting to changes and sacrifices made to adapt a graphic novel to film, it is the only way the genre can branch out in the film world. Persepolis is a large step forward in the right direction, for proving how original a graphic novel adaptation can be.