Interview: Marjane Satrapi, author and director of 'Chicken with Plums'

 

As the daughter of Iranian immigrants and someone who is fairly in touch with her culture, I can’t watch any movie even remotely about Iran without crying. The experience is always too emotional for me; I get overwhelmed about thinking of the sacrifices my parents have had to make and how terrible the Iranian government is and I just can’t keep those tears in. And, I make really ugly crying faces. It’s not cute.

I ruined a dinner party in high school because the hosts put on House of Sand ofFog, and I practically had a nervous breakdown, sobbing uncontrollably until my parents had to leave. Whoops! The same thing happened during every film screening for my Persian Cinema class at the University of Maryland; when I saw Circumstance last year; and during A Separation, the film I’ve respected most so far this year. I’m a top Kleenex customer.

But tears can be good sometimes. There was something very cathartic about weeping while I read the comic book version and watched the film adaptation of Persepolis, the memoir by Iranian-born animator, author and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, and again as I experienced the novel and film versions of her work Chicken with Plums.

Set in Iran in the fall of 1958, Chicken with Plums tells the story of masterful violinist Nasser Ali, married with two children and utterly disinterested in his home life. Instead, the man is committed to his music, so wrapped up in it that Faringuisse, his wife, breaks his violin to make him focus more on the family. Plunged into a state of nihilistic depression, Nasser Ali decides to die — and, eight days later, is successful. Much of the story’s narrative is concentrated on those eight days, with memories of Nasser Ali’s relationship with his mother, flash-forwards into the life of his children, and an exploration of his fascination with Irane, the woman he was in love with before being pressured into marrying Faringuisse. 

Satrapi is a genuine, honest storyteller, and her narratives fuse her skepticism about religion with her passion for Iranian culture, customs and life in general, drawing on her childhood in Iran before she left after the Iranian Revolution. In Chicken with Plums, originally published in 2006, Satrapi probes themes about death, the supernatural and true love, ultimately delivering a story that draws you in even as you know it’s going to break your heart. That’s just how Iranian culture is.

The film version of Chicken with Plums, which opens today in Washington, D.C., was written and directed by Satrapi and her filmmaking partner Vincent Paronnaud, with turns from Mathieu Amalric (of Quantum of Solace and the recent Cosmopolis) as protagonist Nasser-Ali, Maria de Medeiros as his wife Faranguisse, and Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani (of Body of Lies and There Be Dragons) as Irane, the woman who got away. Before the film’s release, Satrapi spoke with Punch Drunk Critics about getting the actors she wanted, the prominent role the Angel of Death plays in her story, and her nextgig directing the film The Voices.

ROXANA HADADI: Your previous film, Persepolis, was animated, but Chicken with Plums is mostly live action, with only a little animation thrown in. Can you talk about the process behind starting work on Chicken with Plums?

MARJANE SATRAPI: When we were finishing Persepolis, we were so much fed up with animation. I obviously loved [Chicken with Plums] and I wrote it myself, and then we said, ‘OK, this is a good story for the cinema,’ and we naively after Persepolis thought, we were Oscar-nominated, they would give us the money. But it is not like that. … From the moment that we decided and wrote the script and could make the film, we had two years … we had time to prepare and ask ourselves the right questions.

RH: What about the actors? Were you able to get everyone you wanted for the film?

MS: We had a wishlist of actors, but the European cinema, you don't necessarily need to go through agents and managers and lawyers. You can just call them on the phone ... and they say yes to the project. So it became something really good, because it is not always that you had everybody that you want. So the casting was not that difficult, and the actors were not that difficult, either. Because I think they all loved the project, and we made everything on set, so everything was created. I don't think it's so fun to play in front of the green screen, so everything was created. It's like having a big playground in which everybody liked to play, and it worked for the project.

RH: Some reviews have called Nasser Ali's conversation with the Angel of Death the film's most profound fantastic element. Do you think that's an accurate description?

MS: [Those elements are just] the other side of life; the meeting with the Angel of Death, it's symbolic for sure, but meeting with your death ... in reality, you are young, and you get a little less young, and then you get old and you die. The reality is that. So there is always death in one way or the other. ... We have a very rich cultural issue with death ... and when you make it, you don't want to make the Angel of Death to be again the old man and old voice. I just wanted the Angel of Death to be like a guy who comes into your kitchen and talks to you and makes small talk, but at the same time, to have some compassion or some people that he is closer to than others. And I think probably it is because at the end of the day, I will meet my Angel of Death, and I want him to look exactly like him [in the book and film], and not an old man with a scary old voice.

RH: The film toys with initial perceptions about its characters, like how Faringuisse comes off terrible at first but eventually becomes somewhat sympathetic, and Nasser Ali's son, whom he despises, is actually the only one praying for him to live. Is it always your intention to create characters who are that complex?

MS: That was the most important for me ... to be honest in what the nature of the human being is. This superhero stuff and the nice guys and bad guys just make it complex, but that's what life is. This is what makes life interesting, the surprise of life. ... It's always the things that come from the people who you wouldn't expect it to come from them. [Nasser Ali's son], the cute guy who is extremely sentimental, it does not stop him from going to America and becoming this average American. ... You don't know what's going to happen in your life. 

RH: You recently signed on to direct The Voices, a film you haven't written, unlike Persepolis or Chicken with Plums. Can you talk about that project?

MS: It's a project [in which] the psychopath has a talking dog and cat who push him to commit murders. It's miles away from what I normally do, but at the same time, this is very dark but has a lot of humor, and for me it's like having an artistic challenge to create somebody else's work, and this is going to be the first for me. It's extremely exciting; there are other stories, there are so many other things that I want to do and will do, but in between if I can do something else, I think it will be good for my mental health. I just want to give it a try ... I will have other years to work in my professional life and a movie takes two or three years of your life, and I don't have many more movies to do. And then I will die. And I want to try the maximum of things just for the pleasure of experimentation and just for the pleasure of trying to do something; maybe it cannot be good and I won't have fun, but the worst thing that can happen in our life is we will die the same way we were born, there is no change in us. I still have a lot of things to learn.