"I grew up in Iran" is a 4-episode cartoon drawn by Iranian female illustrator Mazan Shatabi based on her own experience. Last year, France made it into a cartoon. The film won a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and multiple nominations at the Caesars, however, it was banned from airing in Mazen's own home country.
The film is all about the details of her own growth - the death of the family she loved, her rebellion against school management, the ups and downs of studying abroad, her return to China due to emotional injury, her college career, marriage, divorce, and finally leaving the motherland again. Every detail of this bears the imprint of the changing political situation in Iran: his uncle was imprisoned for nine years for opposing the dictatorship during the dictatorship. Later, the dictatorship was overthrown, but his uncle's political ideas were not accepted in the new regime. executed under the new regime. It was the first time that Mazan experienced the separation of life and death among her relatives, and the death was due to the times; her mother was insulted in the supermarket, and her father was almost killed in the street. In order to express her rebellion, Mazan wore "exotic clothes" and was almost taken away. Go, escape by lying... The whole family has fallen from the excitement of a new life after the success of the revolution into the fear of being monitored and punished. This fear comes from the times; the war between Iran and Iraq has prevented Mazan's relatives from going abroad. After being treated, she fell ill and died. In the middle of the night, she was pulled up by her father and ran to an underground bunker to avoid air raids. The building next to her home was razed to rubble, and innocent civilians died. These unrest come from the times. Mazan was hurt and returned to the country, and her freedom has become less and less. She will be arrested if she wears makeup on the street. She will be arrested if she and her boyfriend hold hands in the car. She is required to wear a longer veil at school. I was having a party with my friends and was searched by the police. During the escape, a friend fell downstairs and died. All this unfreedom comes from the times; as time entered the 90s, the religious authority finally relaxed, and she and her friends dared to secretly take off their veils on the street. These micro-breathing also come from the times.
Even if she flees abroad, she cannot escape from the society and era she belongs to. Her body is engraved with traces of "Iran". In France, she is discriminated against and misunderstood. In the eyes of those people, she is a monster. She fled the country to be free, but she was not destined to be free as easily as people in other countries without so much history of suffering. Born in Iran and raised in Iran, her imprint makes her bear the burden of this country everywhere - this is a destiny that people cannot choose. Since coming to this world, many things in people's destiny have been It's doomed, including her and each of us.
Mazan is an independent-minded person with a strong character, a person who does not succumb to circumstances and always tries to control his own destiny. But her experience has proved to her that what really dominates her destiny is a pair of invisible hands, and that hand is called history.
Even so, this film is not heavy, Mazan's warm family, thoughtful relatives, give her a unique comment on her life that is difficult to break through - the only comment that each of us can have for ourselves Things are things that can be autonomous. Even if life is doomed, it is still worthy of love, cherished, and worth living every minute and every second seriously.
Mazan's wise grandmother taught her: "Wherever you go, remember who you are and your country." This teaching does not express helplessness, nor does it come from the territorial instinct of passive selection of animals. It is to see through the essence of fate, but Still positive - I'm willing to accept whatever fate has given me as my trait rather than my misfortune.
I can't choose where I'm born, what I'm going to experience, but I can choose my attitude - it's still my life.
This is what Grandma Mazan's jasmine fragrance conveys throughout the play.
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