Persepolis

Moldering in the depths of my queue is a movie called The Band's Visit. Israeli production, live action, about an Arab Egyptian orchestra trying to get to a gig in Israel. Supposed to be good. Positively lousy with cross-cultural pathos. I'll get around to it, honest.

Persepolis also premiered at Cannes in 2007. A French production adapting an Iranian woman's autobiographical graphic novel to hand drawn animation. So I learned about these two stories of the Middle East at the same time, but the fact of animation made Persepolis inherently more appealing and higher priority. A drawing can distill the essence of a thing, disregard the superficial. I know when I see The Band's Visit I'm going to be looking at eight particular Arabs standing around some particular dirthole village, and the specificity of it will be itself a thing of value, but the message of commonality would be better served by images more abstract and general. Better a little cartoon girl living through warfare, unrest and expatriation in duotone and silhouette.