Entertainment

IT’S EASY TO BE DRAWN INTO PERSIAN TALE

AT first glance, Marjane Satrapi’s two graphic novels about growing up in Iran seem unlikely candidates for a film, let alone an animated one. But, lo and behold, the books have been superbly brought to the screen in “Persepolis.”

The film and the novels (“Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” and “Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return”) take their names from the Persian capital founded in the sixth century B.C. and destroyed by Alexander the Great in A.D. 330.

Satrapi details her early years under the repressive Shah (she was 9 when he got the boot) and then under the even more dehumanizing (especially for women) Islamic Republic.

At age 14, the outspoken Marjane – a fan of Bruce Lee, Iron Maiden and most things Western – was sent to Vienna, where she endured a failed love affair and a nervous breakdown. She returned to Iran, suffered even more under the mullahs, then departed at age 24 for France, where she now lives happily.

The big-screen “Persepolis” was written and directed by Satrapi and fellow underground comic artist Vincent Paronnaud. It features the voices of three of France’s best-known actresses: Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane; Mastroianni’s real-life mother, Catherine Deneuve, as Marjane’s mom; and Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother.

Except for brief scenes in color, “Persepolis” is shot in a stark black-and-white that recalls such German Expressionist films as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” (Satrapi calls the look “stylized realism.”)

It must not have been easy to condense the complex events of two books into a 95-minute movie, but “Persepolis” does so without seeming rushed or incomplete. It is a vivid, at times heartbreaking, portrait of a life and a nation in crisis.

vam@nypost.com

PERSEPOLIS

A Shah thing.

In French and Farsi, with English subtitles. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (mature themes). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika.