Persepolis is the first hand-painted animation that has sunk a sharp and topical hook into real life. The title is a dry joke. Once upon a time (specifically 500BC), Persepolis was the Las Vegas of the Persian empire. Today it’s a splintered ruin in the middle of Iran – a haunting reminder of what was, and a gravestone for what might have been. So too is Marjane “Marji” Satrapi’s hypnotic fable, peeled from her popular graphic novels.

The film version of Persepolis is an extraordinary charcoal animation about Satrapi’s childhood in Tehran, and her eventual flight to Austria. Her cheeky arguments with bossy old women and chilly policemen are pure Minnie the Minx. The feud between tyrants and extremists is a fascinating Punch and Judy show.

Satrapi’s memories of her liberal parents (voiced by Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian) are fondly sketched in simple black and white. But the mood of the film sours as Khomeini’s hardline regime drags the country back to the Middle Ages. The crippling and pointless war with Iraq is chronicled by images of the aftermath. There are squiggly riptides of inky violence. Fear takes a grip on the film, and Khomeini’s clerics take control of the streets.

Satrapi’s angry parable is how tyranny reinvents itself. Chiara Mastroianni’s droll voiceover keeps the rhythm on an even keel. The older Satrapi’s occasional flights of fancy – notably her surreal tiffs with a world-weary God – are ring-fenced by irony. The teenage Bee Gees fan is a fearless critic of Taleban zealots and withering about their sexist rules. She is a refreshing liability. But the psychological scars run deep.

When Satrapi’s anxious parents dispatch her to the safety of high school in Vienna the racy splash of happy colour in the arrivals lounge dissolves into a sullen reel of depression. Satrapi fails to square her bloody past – and Iranian soul – with the frothy Euro dream. The graphic novel has come of age.

12A, 95mins

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