This film filled the last slot in my 2007 ViFF line-up. I arrived early enough to select a seat that would allow me the most comfort by not blocking anyone’s view.

My first reaction was that the motion graphics were totally amateur. Writer / Director / Producer had Robbie Cavolin had seven years to work on this project and I thought that I could have done a better job with the editing. At first I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, willing to believe that the rudimentary aesthetic was down to old school stylization but with every minute, we missed the sophistication of a well tuned designer – ironic after discovering that Robbie supported himself as Joni Mitchell’s Art Director while making this film.

The film showed a few interviews with ‘jazz experts’ but other than Johnny Mandel I hadn’t heard any of any of them before. I don’t know, maybe I should have heard of Will Friedwald (jazz critic for The New York Sun) or Annie Ross (vocalist) or George Wein (the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival). But the film definitely could have benefited from some bigger names. Get Joni in it for heaven’s sake.

In the end the film benefits from Anita’s unflinching candor in rarely seen interviews and performances that were the real highlight of the film. Robbie was there for a Q&A and related some humorous anecdotes about working with Anita in his guileless bubbly manner.

A full theatre and some more Kee-yo-toe Planet and VIFF trailers assure me that happy people like renewable energy and that nothing can faze me.

It’s ironic to use a medium traditionally employed for children to tell such an grown-up coming of age story. Set against the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the main character, Marjane, introduces us to the shocking reality of life in Tehran through her young eyes. The innocence of such a perspective plays through the rest of the film (despite the fact that she grows up), allowing some levity in an otherwise dark story. It’s clear just how wonderful these moments of levity are in the lives of these characters as oppression and sadness act as a strong foil.

Thankfully, the darkness of Iran-Iraq war is sanitized graphically through clever stylization of the murder, bombing, torture, and gender discrimination. Writer and director, Marjane Satrapi does a great job of offering a balanced perspective on both cultures, western and Islamic. Countering the nihilistic anonymity of a free Europe against the family based search for integrity in the Middle East. This is clearly a woman’s story.

The animation is clever and inventive with moments of real story-telling ingenuity as the artists try to display the development of Marjane’s inner world. At one moment for example, during her western-instilled existential crisis in Austria, Marjane remembers her grandmother’s advice. The special part is that this memory takes the form of a conversation between shadows, Margane’s and her grandmother’s – beautifully done.

Some of the most challenging Islamic principles are brought under scrutiny in the film. From the issue of the veil, to the promise of women in the afterlife for martyrs, from prohibition to God, all from a female perspective. Marjane shows us the ridiculousness of the an art class that uses a veiled nude model or a study of Venus de Milo with half the piece blacked out.

We are left with some intimate memories of the the intensity of a woman’s search for integrity. Marjane literally leaves the audience with a simple sentiment in a symbolic gesture of respect for the wisdom and heart of her grandmother. She remembers affectionately that her grandmother’s bra was always stuffed with jasmine.