2007 / Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi > Part-history lesson, part-coming of age, Persepolis is a fresh and exciting cinematic event for the masses. What becomes problematic, however, is the idea that Satrapi’s journey is neither unique nor over. At the conclusion, there’s a nagging feeling that there must be more than this, yet we are forced to walk away. The film’s most important contribution, ironically, becomes its brief history of Iran, an often misunderstood nation whose political ties have been close to the Western world since the discovery of oil. The parts of the film where Satrapi is in Iran are countlessly more interesting than when she’s in Vienna, diddling away into an awkwardly written episode of Felicity. Still, the whole show is a nice change of pace in a year of weak independent filmmaking.