Offbeat, coming-of-age ‘Persepolis’ one of 2007’s top animated films

In theaters

PERSEPOLIS, written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, 95 minutes, not rated. In French with English subtitles.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s “Persepolis” ushers audiences into two colliding worlds.

The first is an arresting, black-and-white world animated with the grimness of abstract noir (color is used only fleetingly in this movie). The second is Satrapi’s real-life story of growing up in Iran and Europe during the late 1970s and early 1990s, which gives life to the film’s 2-D animation in ways that make for a strange yet fascinating brand of pop art.

The story and the vehicle for telling it complement each other so beautifully, they work to make this one of 2007’s most unique, satisfying movies. What Satrapi and Paronnaud have achieved is animation lifted to its highest, most cerebral form, with the medium used as a tool to generate the sort of offbeat, dreamlike mood live-action would find difficult to match.

Based on Satrapi’s graphic novels, the film is a coming-of-age story for adults that follows headstrong Marjane (voice of Chiara Mastroianni) through an extended period of civil and personal unrest. Her disillusionment, rebellion and disappointment all come to a head because of the chaos created by the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.

To a certain degree, Marjane’s cynical worldview and her dark sense of humor help her to assemble what can’t rationally be assembled. Still, even that ability can take her only so far. Born to a cosmopolitan family, she is a feminist growing up in a country that came to shun Western ideals after the fall of the Shah and which repressed its people, especially women, as a result. Every breath within her lives to move forward and be an individual, but how can she do so when the country she loves is now determined to hold her back?

Helping her through her challenging early years are her supportive mother (Catherine Deneuve) and father (Simon Abkarian), as well as her savvy grandmother (Danielle Darrieux) and an imprisoned uncle (Francois Jerosme). In spite of their guidance, Marjane remains a loose cannon, falling into the prickly folds of punk rock and removing her veil when the wrong people are watching. This worries her parents to the point that they exile her to Austria, where she attends school and becomes as much a stranger in that land as her own land has become to her.

As the years pass, “Persepolis” reveals an undercurrent of sadness that’s bracing. The questions the movie poses are humbling, none more so than the idea that sometimes your country no longer can be your home if you radically oppose its views. The direction Iran took essentially exiled Marjane from life, which is the cold truth she must face, though in ways that won’t be revealed here.

In the end, what we have here isn’t just one of the finest animated movies of 2007, but also one of its best foreign language films. Look for the deserving “Persepolis” to be nominated in the latter category for an Academy Award.

Grade: A-

On DVD and Blu-ray

3:10 TO YUMA, directed by James Mangold, written by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, 117 minutes, rated R.

James Mangold’s beautifully acted, expertly staged remake of “3:10 to Yuma” proves there is still more to be discovered in the Old West. Given the enthusiasm with which he directs, it’s clear that Mangold (“Walk the Line”) came to the material charged with the sense that he could manipulate familiar stock Western conventions and make them appear fresh so long as he had the story, the characters and the cast to back up his bravado.

That he does is an understatement. “3:10 to Yuma” was one of last year’s more exciting movies.

Based on Elmore Leonard’s short story, itself inspired by the 1952 movie “High Noon,” the film’s plot is as lean and as simple as you’d expect from Leonard, but none of that simplicity translates to the characters, who are complex and human in ways that make for an emotionally rich narrative.

Christian Bale is Dan Evans, whose failing cattle ranch is fueling an already tense situation at home. Though his youngest boy adores him, his eldest son, Will (Logan Lerman), and Dan’s wife, Alice (Gretchen Mol), have lost faith in him – Will looks at him in disgust, Alice with pity, neither of which exactly makes Dan feel like the man he longs to be.

When into his life comes Russell Crowe’s Ben Wade, an infamous outlaw with a string of robberies and murders behind him, Dan is faced with an opportunity to regain the respect he has lost when Wade is captured. A railroad official (Dallas Roberts) offers him $200 to help bring Wade to justice. Given the viciousness of Wade’s posse, which is led by the chilling Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), it’s a risky proposition, but Dan’s desperation to turn his life around is so great, he nevertheless accepts it.

What ensues is just as action-packed and as disastrous as you’d expect, but what you might not expect is the odd bond that grows between Dan and Ben. With Dan choosing a life of good and Ben a life of evil, each becomes fascinated by the other, which allows director James Mangold to mine unexpected depths from a movie that, in the wrong hands, could have relied solely on action and thus wouldn’t have allowed for the terrific performances Mangold pulls from Crowe and Bale.

Grade: A

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.