The Enduring Beauty of “Persepolis”
This powerful story shines with poetic animation, an exploration of deeper truths, and the protagonist's complex search for identity.

This is a combination coming out and first love story. The swimmer and diver Lucard is interested in attractive Martin. The film follows the characters' coming out with all its difficulties, the bitter-sweet pleasures of first love and the dreadful moment when one comes down to reality and realizes that one's beloved friend has a hard way to go yet. The positive message the film tries to transmit is the somewhat common motto "Live each day of your life as if it were your last."
This powerful story shines with poetic animation, an exploration of deeper truths, and the protagonist's complex search for identity.
Director Martin Scorsese broadens his boundaries from mafia-driven movies, to a Buddhist biopic of the 14th Dalai Lama. While Buddhism strives for peace, ‘Kundun’ reveals the violence inflicted on Tibetan Buddhists and Scorsese’s depiction of violence does not stray away.
The plot could’ve really been interesting if the elements of lycanthropy was integrated with perhaps the struggle of identity of being LGBTQ+. It's an experience for so many that as they’re starting to realizing their true selves, they feel like a monster, especially if they come from unsupportive homes or communities. Instead, the horror and transformation elements seem thrown in without contemplation of how this could deepen the narrative.
'Don't Breathe 2' is a sequel that forgoes almost everything that made its predecessor good, and asks audiences to root for a rapist on top of that.
Marvel’s first Asian superhero film, 'Shang-Chi', deserves praise for balancing epic superhero action, a heartfelt family plot, and positive Asian representation.
As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to an end, I’d like to urge viewers and filmmakers to take a long and hard look at how rape is portrayed on screen.