Persepolis is an autobiographical French-language animated feature about coming of age as a woman in revolutionary Iran. Marjane Satrapi (Chiara Mastroianni) is only nine years old when the 1978 uprising against the Shah of Iran begins. The young Marjane wants to participate in the revolution and begins lashing out at the children of government officials, but stops when she receives a nighttime visit from God. God tells Marjane that she must be forgiving and she should never take justice into her own hands. Inspired by her religious experience, Marjane resolves to become a prophet when she grows up. Her middle-class family joins the waves of protesters in the streets, but when the Shah is overthrown in 1979 their hopes for a free and open Iran vanish. They find that Ayatollah Khomeini's new Islamic Fundamentalist regime is not so different from the Shah's monarchy, and soon both Marjane's faith and family are devastated by Khomeini's cruel edicts.moreless