How Does Marjane Use Lighting In Persepolis

The movie Persepolis recounts Marjane Satrapi’s life growing up during a revolution in Iran. The scene of the movie in which Marjane imagines a conversation with her grandmother after pretending to be French, is a critical moment in Marjane’s story. This critical moment is built by the filmmaker to envelop the audience into the atmosphere of the story. The filmmaker impacts the audience by creating emotion through lighting and setting.

The filmmaker uses lighting in a way that builds up a woeful atmosphere. In the scene, the conversation between Marjane and her grandma is portrayed through shadows. Although Marjane imagines an entire conversation with her grandmother, she can’t actually interact with her, similar to the way shadows can’t be held or touched. The shadows, which represent gloom and intangibility, add to the downcast atmosphere. Another instance of lighting building emotion in a scene is the fading away of Marjane’s grandmother’s, leaving Marjane’s shadow alone. The disappearance of her grandmother’s shadow evokes a sense of loss. Marjane’s lone …show more content…
In the scene, Marjane walks out of club in Austria. Her exit of a club emphasizes the difference in culture between Iran and Europe, as Marjane would not be partying in clubs in Iran. And although Marjane has the freedom to go where she wants when she wants (which is a freedom she desired in Iran), she is unhappy. The setting is emphasized again when Marjane, who is in Europe, imagines speaking to her grandmother, who is in Iran. The vastly different settings that Marjane and her grandmother are in highlights their distance from each other, in both land and culture. This interaction between people living in two different settings, illustrates Marjane’s split identity (between that of Austria and that of Iran). The filmmaker’s utilization of setting built the scene in a way that the audience could feel Marjane’s