Friday, September 21, 2012

SOUL FOOD


'Chicken With Plums' a luscious, imaginative love story

First there was Persepolis, a gorgeously rendered black-and-white animated film about growing up female in Iran based on the graphic novel memoir by Marjane Satrapi. 

Now, Satrapi and her filmmaking partner Vincent Paronnaud are back with a splendid sophomore effort, Chicken With Plums. Although based on another Satrapi graphic novel, the new film is a stylistic departure from Persepolis in many interesting ways: it's live-action, it tells a soulful, romantic fictional drama, and its shot in delirious color.

In Chicken With Plums, the filmmakers take a fanciful approach to a story supposedly inspired by Satrapi's uncle, a concert musician, turning it into a wistful, allegorical, fairy tale-like drama. 

Although shot in French with an international cast, the film story is set in Tehran in 1958, during the last eight days of its protagonist's life. The narrative pirouettes back and forth between past, present, and future, a device that allows the filmmakers to observe several decades of Iranian culture while gradually revealing the love story at its core. (Read more)


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