Interview: Marjane Satrapi, co-writer/director of Chicken with Plums

Written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, the 2011 fantasy-fueled comedy-drama film Chicken with Plums (Sony, DVD $30.99, available Feb. 26, 2013) is smoking…in more ways than one…

Like their 2008 animated movie Persepolis. Satrapi and Paronnaud’s latest film is based on a graphic novel by Satrapi. The 2006 novel and movie concern the last eight days in the life of Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Almaric, Wild Grass), a renowned Iranian musician who loses all taste for life when his beloved violin is broken. Finding no instrument worthy of replacing it, Nasser decides to confine himself to bed to await death. Hoping for its arrival, Nasser plunges into series of deep dreams, both melancholic and joyous, which take him back to his youth and even to a conversation with a soothsaying Angel of Death himself. Love and happiness appear to be in the air, but that proves to be bittersweet as Death lurks right outside of Nasser’s dreams.

Okay, now here comes the smoke: Chicken with Plums sensually weaves its way through a host of flavorful genres as it unveils Nasser’s dreams, including melodrama, comedy, romance, musical, fantasy and even animation. While some segments are more successful than others, all are served up with zest and enthusiasm, as are the silky smooth segues that bring them together. It’s a rippling, smoky style that isn’t just confined to the telling of the narrative—there’s smoke EVERYWHERE. Nasser constantly smokes cigarettes, his dreams are filled with smoke, spirits are represented by smoke, and so on. And that doesn’t even include the magical smoke that plays a major role in the film’s climax.

As a smoker speaking with the Iranian-born Ms. Satrapi for DiscDish, I was particularly intrigued with what she had to say about smoking in the movies, an act that Chicken with Plums confirms she fully supports and encourages!

Disc Dish: I have to tell you, I really wanted to light up while watching Chicken with Plums!

Marjane Satrapi: (laughs) Really? So did I!

DD: I’ve never seen smoking so passionately depicted. Are you and Mr. Parranoud both smokers?

MS: Oh yes. We’re both smokers and we’re proud of it

DD: Your luscious depiction of it in Chicken with Plums offers a very different perception of it than we get here in the West, particularly in recent years.

MS: It’s the fashion now to hate smoking. Like all the problems in the world are solved—no pollution, no shit in water—and now the only problem people have are smoke and smokers. It’s like if you don’t smoke, then you’re not going to die. The particles that stay in your lungs, carbon monoxide, that comes from cars. Before forbidding smoking we should forbid cars, then we’ll talk.

DD: Like I said, there’s been a general movement in studios lately to avoid to the glamorization of smoking in the movies.

MS: I don’t want to quit smoking, I’ve been a smoker all my life. Also, could you imagine Humphrey Bogart without his cigarette or Lauren Bacall without her cigarette? Rita Hayworth without her cigarette? I could go on all day. And today there is Jennifer Aniston and Zac Efron. Bacall and Aniston? For me, there is no comparison.

DD: Images of smoking in the movies are quite iconic and powerful.

Golshifteh Farahani and Mathieu Amalric in Chicken with Plums.

MS: Yes. And sexually, from an ‘attraction” point of view, everything is not on the same level. Smoke is extremely cinematic. It’s extremely nice to film. It’s also a symbol of life. One second it’s there, the next it’s not. It disappears after it gives you some pleasure. That’s a beautiful thing. But today, if someone smokes, especially [in U.S. studio films], they have to turn down the light on the cigarette and in the next few minutes, the [smoker] will kill a woman, or a child, or blow up a building. The bad guy is coming, he lights up his cigarette.

DD: You did the opposite. It was refreshing, no sarcasm intended.

MS: I had two grandmothers, both of them smokers, and they lived a long time. And I had two uncles that were health freaks, not smokers, and they both died in their early 60’s from cancer.

DD: In Chicken with Plums, even the Angel of Death is smoking.

MS: Even in the 80s, everyone was smoking. Bruce Willis could smoke. Today, everyone is like, ‘Gasp!’ I don’t quite understand… Anyway, I think smokers are very sexy, I think the smoke as an object is very beautiful to film and is very photogenic. It gives you some style. And if you don’t have any style, then what….?