Stephen Holden, writing in Friday's New York Times, waxed poetic about the animated film based on Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis graphic novels.  Of the film, which closed out theNew York Film Festival on Sunday night, he said 'On the rare occasion when serious aesthetic exploration and an entertaining yarn fuse, as in Persepolis..., everyone should be satisfied.'

The movie, which has been seen by over 700,000 in France, overcame Holden's prejudice against animated features.  'It is so enthralling that it eroded my longstanding resistance to animation,' he said, 'and I realized that the same history translated into a live-action drama could never be depicted with the clarity and narrative drive that bold, simple animation encourages.'

Persepolis, which Boyd van Hoeji characterized as 'quite simply one of the best book adaptations to have come out of Europe in recent years,' opens on Christmas Day (see 'Persepolis Animated Feature') and represents one of the major graphic novel sales opportunities of the winter season.  Since the film is likely to get an art house release, retailers will have to pay attention to scheduling at their local theaters.  One thing seems certain, Persepolis is likely to garner the kind of reviews that make for success on the art house circuit -- and its setting during the Iranian revolution adds an element of political currency that will make this film impossible to ignore.