Poulet aux prunes

I loved Persepolis both as a graphic novel and as a film. So I was looking forward to Satrapi's new work. I had neither read the graphic novel nor much about the film before watching, which I now regret because this film has little or nothing to do with its predecessor. First of all, it is no animation film and Satrapi's beautiful artwork is limited to the opening titles and to a tale told by the Angel of Death towards the end of the film. The whole cast is French, they speak French and both look and behave like French and, except when it comes to the characters' names, one has to do a big effort to keep in mind that the story is supposed to take place in Teheran. It might be a meaningless detail to some, but for me it was a disturbing discrepancy. The whole film has a superb photography and every scene is carefully manufactured (i.e. manipulated in post-production) into something that indeed looks like a powerful work of art. But inside this nicely wrapped box, I find really little that makes this film worth watching. It's not a film for children: I wouldn't want to tell my children the story of a man who decides to let himself die showing total disrespect for both his wife and children. But as a grown-up, I am really missing something, that something that I did find in the autobiography of a little girl growing up away from a country which has ceased to exist. Chicken with plums is a sort of disturbing bedtime story about a man who lost the joy of living, carefully wrapped up in some sort of misty reverie, nothing more than that. Still, it is probably supposed to be a comedy, and that adds a little sugar to the pill that you'll have to swallow if you decide to watch this. I feel a big disappointment. Just like that plate of smoking-hot chicken with plums which is left untouched on the table by the protagonist.

lovely. melancholic. delicate. impressive. touch of powerful emotions and a common case who can remember the characters of Italo Svevo or Tchekov. a film about a different image of hero. shadows of solitude, gray existence, search of death, old love story. and a brilliant Mathieu Amalric.the cast is only a side of this gorgeous movie. its secret - gentle circles of Iranian reality as song of a violin. a transformation of reality and pure genius of director. splendid images. moving story. and flavor of old spaces of passion. story of a hero. a hero of every time. like sign. of a human isle in middle of society ocean.

By not betraying her own personal style and the comic source, evident in its graphic and contrived aesthetic, this film work from Marjane Satrapi doesn't' exploit his full poetic potential, as it chokes the plot in an exercise in style which enchants the eye more than the heart, in a series of surrealistic digressions, flashbacks and flash-forwards (the futures of protagonist's children), by looking for poetic effects instead of true poetry. Nevertheless, the ending, practically silent, explains and forgives the limits and the excesses of a film built on form and on a cinematographic "cinéphile" quoter mannerism, and finally gets to the craved emotion. Ironic, melancholic and visionary mix, with more care for narration and less for stylish frippery it would have been a great hymn to life: as it is now, it did it in half. Paraphrasing the character of the music master: good technique with no heart doesn't make great music.

Having enjoyed Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, both as a graphic novel and a film, the lack of any buzz for her new film (also adopted from one of her graphic novels) had lowered my expectations for Chicken with Plums. Whilst Persepolis was a highly original piece of work, Chicken with Plums surpasses it in every way and is truly a great work of art. It is therefore fitting that it is a movie about art and artists. The simple tale of a musician whose only passion in a loveless marriage is searching for the perfect violin, is beautifully realized by Satrapi, her co-director and crew, and a sublime cast. A scene where the protagonist, near the end of his life, comes across his only true love, whose father had rejected his proposal to marry his daughter many years ago, is an unforgettable piece of cinema. I saw this at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival where it walked away with the Best Film prize, which it fully deserved.

From the creators of PERSEPOLIS comes the tale of a man who loses all hope and decides to die after his favorite violin is destroyed. That might sound odd, but of course it is a gross oversimplification of what goes on in CHICKEN WITH PLUMS. The central character, Nasser Ali (Matthieu Amalric), does indeed lose his precious violin, but its significance is revealed is multiple flashback sequences which give him background, motivation and depth. I don't really want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that the end result is rather poetic and touching. From a visual standpoint, it continues from the same place that PERSEPOLIS came from, while imbuing it with lots of color and fantastic elements. The film feels like a fairy tale at times, with a sense of whimsy and free-flowing creativity that flies in the face of rather depressing subject matter. Matthieu Amalric does a standup job as Nasser Ali, bringing a certain world-weariness to his character as well as youthful optimism in the flashback scenes. Ultimately, by the end of the film you understand why Nasser has chosen to just give up (although I don't condone suicide). Thematically, I think the film works on a couple of levels. First, there is the surface story which is about losing hope and one's raison d'etre. However, with a character named "Iran," I also think that there is a subtle political allegory as well. The film takes place in the 1950's and references are made visually and through dialogue to indicate that Marjane Satrapi is making commentary on this particular period of Iranian history. She also takes some potshots at America that I thought were slightly uncalled for, although no less funny in the context of the film. My only real issues with the film are that the supporting characters are mostly sidelined and/or underwritten, and the narrative structure lends itself to being a little episodic at times. That being said, though, I was quite pleased with the end result and emotionally invested the whole way. Overall, CHICKEN WITH PLUMS is a delightful cinematic confection from Marjane Satrapi about her native Iran. The subject matter is kind of depressing, but plenty of visual sugar (along with some emotional heft) helps the medicine go down smoothly.