Blu-ray Review: Persepolis

THE MOVIE: 4 stars out of 5
Persepolis is a film by Mariane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud and was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 for Best Animated Feature. Persepolis also won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Film. The nominations were well deserved.

The film is based on autobiographical graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi and tells the story of a young girl growing up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. Her parents, fearful for her future, have her leave Iran and attend school in Vienna where they hope she will be able to lead a fulfilling life in a modern open society. While in Vienna, she drifts from house to house while attending school and has many and varied experiences with a number of subcultures in Vienna as well with a number of lovers. However, as she grows older, she becomes increasingly homesick and decides to leave the West and return home where she is reunited with her parents. However, over time, she becomes depressed and increasingly dissatisfied with life in Iran and longs for a better life. Persepolis is a wonderful film, giving a glimpse of what life was like in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution and and Iraq/Iran war, especially for women. It is a thought provoking film and well worth a look. Recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 3/4 stars out of 5
Encoded with AVC and presented on a BD50 disc in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1. In short, as is often the case with animated films, this encode looks wonderful. Most of the film is animated in black and white. Black levels are excellent and solid with excellent shadow detail. The various shades of black, gray and white are wonderfully rendered here with excellent fidelity and will really shine on displays and set ups with excellent grayscale tracking. The overall picture is clear and detailed with an excellent sense of depth. The few scenes animated in color look amazing as well with very accurate colors, detail and depth as well. This is one excellent looking disc and one that is hard to quibble with. My only quibble and it is really a minor one, concerns some very minor and very infrequent posterization seen in just a couple of scenes. It is really minor and not distracting at all but enough of an issue to reduce the score from a reference level. Fans of this film will be thrilled with the video quality. Well done.

THE AUDIO: 4 7/8 stars out of 5
There are two high rez audio encodes on this release, Dolby True HD 5.1 in both French and English. As the film was made in French, I watched the film using the French audio track and English subtitles. As I aside, the white subtitles at times were difficult to see on the black and white background of the film. However, it did not really detract from my enjoyment of the film. Well, how does the disc sound? Marvelous. The dialogue track was very well recorded with very natural sounding voices. The dialogue track was very well presented in the sound mix and easy to follow, if I could only understand French! The overall sound of the film was rich, smooth and open without a hint of harshness or edginess. Bass is deep and solid and impactful, especially during the war sequences. Excellent use is also made of the surrounds, giving excellent ambiance in both interior and exterior scenes. This encode features excellent fidelity which is most apparent with the musical score which sounds beautiful here. Very well done.

IN CONCLUSION
Persepolis is a very thought provoking film that features excellent video and audio presentations and is well worth your time. Recommended.

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