Weekend Netflix Report: 'Persepolis' and 'To Live'

Two impressive films about revolution and its affects on "ordinary" people:

Persepolis, based on a graphic novel and a true story, is animated, but there's no Disney saccharine. The heroine, who survives, not unscathed, the Iranian revolution, is plucky but not perky. She endures her mostly black-and-white (literally) world for a time, but ends up an exile, living ambiguously ever after. The Oscar-nominated film is in French with subtitles.

To Live explores similar narrative territory in Mao's China. Over three decades, a couple experiences repeated disasters and tragedies, all related to Maoist idiocies, except for the initial loss of their bourgeous home due to a gambling addiction -- though that turns out to be a blessing in disguise under Communism. There was plenty of opportunity for melodrama in the script, but the director avoids it and gets completely convincing performances from the actors. Palm d'Or nominee, in Chinese with subtitles.