Mr. Plush
English 10 Honors
8/26/2014
Iran's Misty Wonders
In Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, both the movie and the book were able to portray the main idea of Marjane Satrapi "Marji's" life. The main idea being for us to look at how Marji evolved into a grown women with struggles along the way. Throughout both we were able to clearly understand what a difficult childhood she lived and we were able to get a sense of what her life was like back then. Like in many cases, the book informed us of every detail possible in order to get a clearer message across. When it came to the movie, it lacked many details that were included in the book and if you would not have read the book it would cause you to be confused and lost.
There are a couple scenes in the movie that seem to just happen, there was no type of development or leading actions involved. There was a specific scene in the movie where Marji and her mother walk past a conversation that her father and neighbors are having, the female neighbor seems to have some type of scar in her cheek but we are not sure what it is and if it even matters. If we take a look at the book we see that the scene is different. Marji and her family briefly talk with their neighbors, a husband and wife, and the husband tells her father “Look! A bullet almost hit my wife’s cheek,” (44). This was a piece of information that could and should have been briefly added because it gives us a bigger picture of how dangerous their lives were during the revolution. This would only help us, the viewers, have a bigger reaction to the plot.
Another example that comes to mind was the absence of certain characters. The family’s maid, Mehri, as well as Marji's good friend, is never mentioned in the movie. This was an important factor because throughout an incident that is described in the book we are able to learn the big issues with social class and in the movie it is something that we miss out on since it is not mentioned at all.