Ararat

Rating:
Summary: Egoyan's Unfinished Masterpiece-The Ambiguous Past
Review: This film is considered important because it brings to light a virtually forgotten(by some) episode in twentieth-century history: the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks during WWI. Unfortunately the film never really explains why it happened nor does it explain why it was forgotten. In other words the history is presented but not examined. What is examined is how the genocide continues to haunt the Armenians.

For those interested in the facts I would suggest a recent book: The Burning Tigris, The Armenian Genocide and America's Response by Peter Balakian.

Arsinee Khanjian plays Ani an art history professor who has just written a book about Arshile Gorky. She has also been twice widowed. One of her husbands died trying to assassinate a Turkish official( a revolutionary act or an act of terrorism depending on your perspective) and another husband committed sucide or fell or was pushed from a cliff--uncertainty informs every aspect of these characters lives. Ani lives in a kind of academic cocoon; she hides behind her expertise and only indirectly deals with the past by studying and lecturing about Gorky who was a survivor of the genocide. When she is hired as a consultant on a film version of the genocide she reluctantly accepts the position and compromises her reputation and integrity. Why she does this is unclear. Her son(by the revolutionary-terrorist) meanwhile is having an affair with his stepsister(her dad the one that fell or was pushed). Both children struggle with their private histories and each comforts the other one as they try to come to terms with a past that their mother avoids. Confused? Well the film makes it all clear, to a point. The psychologies of these three are explored and they are each intriguing individuals dealing with the past in their own private way. Arguably though they are not explored thoroughly enough and even at the end of the film I am not certain there is any real understanding between these three or if the audience has been given enough information to really feel they know what they each have gone through. It is perhaps a minor (or major) fault of the film that it is so complex that you find yourself focusing more on keeping the plot straight than on really understanding what drives the characters. I watched it twice however and even after a second viewing there is still a lot that reamins vague about these characters to me still. Why did Ani accept the consulting position? What does her son learn when he visits Ararat by himself and how does this transform him? Does the daughter really love her brother or is this just her way of taking revenge on her mother?

Egoyan films are fascinating because they enter into realms of emotion that no man (at least no film maker) has gone before. The psychologies Egoyan focuses on are all in pain so his films are difficult on the emotions. The actress who played the daughter Cecile(I beleive she is Spanish) is particularly excellent. As difficult at it is to watch her performance is an eerlily authentic one.

Arshile Gorky's famous self-portrait as a child standing next to his mother represents the irrevovable past and lost innocence. But it bothered me that Ani allowed herself to be used by the film within a films director and writers who simply wanted her name to lend credibility to the very uncredible fictionalizing of Gorky's life.

Elias Koteas plays a Turkish actor hired to play a Turkish official in the film within a film. On screen he gives a powerful performance and offscreen he openly denies that the genocide actually occured. It is a role(and attitude) which could have been explored more thoroughly. Instead it just feels like a token gesture to represent the Turkish version of the genocide (which in Egoyan's view is simply one of denial).

The ambition behind Ararat is commendable but I think ultimately the film either should have been longer to allow for more character development (especially with the Koteas character) or there should have been fewer plot lines. It feels kind of like a juggling act at times with one too many items in the air. Perhaps Egoyan purposely leaves many things unresolved because that is the way life is but as art it leaves you feeling unsatisfied. Too many loose ends. They are interesting loose ends nonetheless. Like the Gorky painting which remained unfinished this film feels unfinished.

Egoyan fans will love this film but others will probably have a mixed response as they decide for themselves what the film does well and what not so well.

Rating:
Summary: A very human story
Review: Wow, this movie has touched a few nerves...that's usually a sign that they did something right! What I liked very much about this movie was the very human element it added to a subject such as the Armenian genocide, which I think is applicable to all tragedies such as this, as they fade away in the past. In the film, we are confronted with the emotions of Armenians who were not directly involved in the historical events per se, but who still were dealing with the psychological residue of such a horrid event. Many important questions were raised: for example, in the New World, in Canada, where the threat of such a genocide does not loom over everyone, how does an Armenian deal with his or her feelings of fear, anger, frustration, and sorrow over what happend to his or her people? Become a 'terrorist', make a movie, paint? How do you deal with all this pain in a place where most people simply do not understand, because they have never had this sort of thing thrust upon them? What history is real, and what is fabricated? What culpability does a Canadian Turk today play for the actions of his nation's government decades ago?

Both for the questions that are raised in this movie, and for the way the story is woven around stories from modern life, I think this movie is most definitely worth watching. The soundtrack is awesome too!

Rating:
Summary: Complex + Egoyan = Brilliant Story...
Review: Ararat is a brilliant and complex story about a young man being stopped in customs with a suspect bundle of tin containers containing undeveloped films. The customs officer (Christopher Plummer) begins a long and tedious interrogation in regards to the tin containers, which has it roots in a 1915-1918 genocide of Turkish Armenians. The story that the young man reveals is tied to him, his fathers death 15 years ago, stepfather's death, a film director, a film production, his step sister, his mother, a gay couple, a famous painter, and how the Armenian holocaust affects them in today's society. The cross-examination also brings a symbolic meaning to whether the 1915-1918 genocide of Turkish Armenians, which is still denied to this day by the Turkish government, ever took place. Egoyan brings another cerebral story to the audience as he displays his vast knowledge of human behavior and the denial people deal with under unpleasant circumstances. In addition, the script is a clever creation as it exposes human nature in natural dialogues from a wide variety of multifaceted characters who bring different lights to the issue at hand.

Rating:
Summary: The Complete Picture..
Review: I liked this movie because unlike most movies about massacre and persecution in the Old World, this movie follows up on the persecuted peoples, in this case the Armenians, as they find the life in their new country-of-refusge, Canada. As is the case with real, live human beings, escaping persecution to safety and "freedom" is not enough to address the complexity of the human soul. All of the Armenian-Canadians portrayed in the film live in a New World context and suffer from New World problems along with the alienations and isolations of New World lives. As in all Egoyan movies, most of the film protagonists in this exsemble work do not exist merely as didactic sterotypes. They breath, their relationship to their heritage is compromised in the personal life, they suffer. They suffer in a way which is special to the New World, Canada and The United States alike.

Instead of bringing us a dry, linear account, the story of the Armenian massacre in Eastern Turkey is told indirectly, through the filming of a film about it. In many instances the viewer is confused, not certain if it actually is a flashback to the actual past or merely the scenes of the massacre being filmed for the film. Does it matter? What is the relationship between the actual events and the events portrayed in the film? One keeps wondering about that.

Like all Egoyan films, the production is professional and smooth. The themes of his earlier movies about emotional disconnection and the use of video and vice to overcome that disconnection appear here as well. That is perhaps what makes this movie special: In exploring his own Armenian heritage, he never drops the ball of his old themese and concerns. He never forgets or ignores thay they are all in Canada now and that the fact that the Armenians were persecuted in the Old World, does not solve their problems of existentiality and their own estrangement in a New World Society.

Egoyan offers us a new model for the making of films about cataclyismic, life ruining problems. I wish that movies of this type could have been made about the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and thought provoking
Review: This is a film that will haunt you for days after you have seen it. The sickening scenes of the turks killing Armenian cililians you will find hard to shake from your head.

But what really makes this such a brilliant movie is not just the fact that it deals with a little known attempt to eradicate a race of people off the face of the earth, but that it looks at the impact of this on survivors of the genocide 85 years later. How do modern day Armenians deal with the fact that the Turks tried to eradicate them from the face of the planet? The stories of what happened is part of who they are, in the same way that Hitlers attempt to wipe the Jewish people of the face of the planet is part of who they are. It cannot just be "forgotten", they cannot just "get on with their life in a new country". The pain and anger of what happened will stay with all Armenians.

Which brings me to the opinions of those Turks who ask why Armenians hold such hatred for the Turks, or claim the genocide never happenned. I will state first off that I do not have any Armenian heritage, though I am lucky enough to have friends of both Armenian and Turkish background. One of the main reasons for Armenians holding such hatred to Turks to this day is the fact that Turkey has refused to admit that they did anything wrong and apologise for it. It is this that causes many Armenians to hate Turks with such vehemence.

As for the arguement that this did not happen, this is just a plain lie. There are eyewitness testimonies from people from Neutral countries about what happenned. Even more damming is the fact that there are documents from German officials and military (Turkey's ally in WW1) about what happenned. But worst of all there are Turkish Government documents that detail the orders to massacre Armenian civilians. As for the arguement that Armenian Bandits were attacking Turkish civilians, this may be true. But a civilised country punishes the bandits, it does not massacre innocent civilians.

I strongly recommend everybody watches this movie. It is not an easy movie to watch, but you will come away from it moved, and more knowledgeable then you were before you watched it. You cannot say that about many films.

Rating:
Summary: art or artifice?
Review: Armenian-Canadian and Egyptian-born film director Atom Egoyan's film Ararat on "the Armenian genocide", while intricately constructed in his usual style, is a disservice to the ideals of progressive constructionism and historically faithful fiction. In this context it is important to consider how the Armenian propaganda machine and extremist groups regularly abuse Armenian art in order to reach their political aims. These fringe elements of the Armenian diaspora (especially in North America) over the 20th century have built the expat Armenian identity squarely on anti-Turkish feelings and this movie works to buttress that aim. The director's life and growing up in Canada as a teenage immigrant also impacts the movie in predictable ways, and is worth commenting on. Egoyan is essentially an identity-convert. He refused his Armenian identity as a teenager and made efforts to be a 'normal' Canadian. He did not speak Armenian. However in college, radical Armenian nationalists helped him rebuild his national identity on powerful anti-Turkish sentiments. Now they could bond around a common enemy. He was Armenian because he was anti-Turkish and vica versa. The nationalist trend in his character became even more significant when he married a beautiful but fanatic Lebanese Armenian, Arsinée Khanjian, who is cast as Ani in the movie. There's nary a single member of the cast who isn't caught up in the politics and this shows.

The 'genocide legacy' in particular has played a crucial role in Egoyan's self-identification like many Armenians in the diaspora, descendants of rural folk forced out of their ancestral lands as refugees by events beyond their control or comprehension. Though almost none of these millions of North American descendants of displaced Armenians had ever been to Turkey (or Armenia for that matter, though this would have been more difficult under the Soviets), many of them continued to believe and financially support the notion that the Turks had attempted to obliterate their race. Mind you these very same Turks and Armenians are descendants of Ottomans, a very genetically diverse and inclusive group (not to be dismissed by glib theories of rape and pillage - cf. Semino et al. Science vol. 290 10 Nov 2000, for an analysis of European Y chromosomes and human migration) who despite early military successes were unarguably one of the most tolerant conquerors in recorded history. It is deeply ironic that these people would nevertheless sabotage their own community after hundreds of years of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and collaboration in art, philosophy, literature, and trade. Most of the fruits of this cultural collaboration is unfortunately unavailable on the web or outside the realm of academia, but not music- see "Istanbul 1925" (a compilation CD by Traditional Crossroads available through Amazon) for a delightful historical example, coincidentally reproduced from the original recordings in the US by Armenian-Americans.

In essence Egoyan has exaggerated the past in order to legitimize his identity, in the cultural obsession which is the primary trait of "modern" Armenian art.

Egoyan bases his script on the (1917) book by Clarence Ussher, who worked as an American missionary in the eastern Ottoman Empire during WWI. However, the script deviates considerably from Ussher's accounts, beyond the boundaries of artistic expression especially for such a politically charged historical subject. Egoyan chooses to focus in his film-within-a-film on the Armenian revolt in the Ottoman city of Van in 1915. However the script conveniently neglects the fact that the actual revolt ended with the victory of Armenians, when the Ottoman governor of Van was forced to flee and was replaced by an Armenian at the conclusion of a bloody joint attack by the Russian army, which occupied the city joined by local Armenian bandits and militia. This Armenian-Russian joint attack resulted in the death of more than 20,000 Van residents, none of whom were armed combatants. Of course these historical 'macro' facts also covered in Ussher's book did not fit well into the victim's psychology which pervades the movie.

Ararat, though I hate to say it, is a typical Armenian propaganda film (see also Midnight Express) and will damage the ongoing attempts for Armenian-Turkish dialogue for the benefit of humanity, ie. for the people who actually have to live in these countries and not kick back on their leather couch in a US/Canadian suburb and pop in a DVD for entertainment/shock value, or for self-serving members of the diaspora hungry for victim psychology consumables. As other unbiased movie critics will attest, Ararat is one of Egoyan's worst films in terms of art value. A good product requires effort, subtlety and meticulousness. Extreme prejudice, ideological perniciousness and cartoonish depictions of good and evil do not improve the artistic quality of a film. That's not to claim Egoyan made this movie out of sheer hatred. The point is that he is compelled to become the voice of the proselytisers and as such does not really attempt with his art to reach into the nature of societal and emotional tensions that underlie cultural obsessions. As he states in interviews he refuses to discuss 'the genocide issue'. When you reject dialogue or debate on an issue you can't claim to make a critical film on the subject. It's likely that extremist Armenian elements within the diaspora acting through his wife and friends (not to mention Bob Lantos) have put enormous pressure on Egoyan to make a film like Ararat. This pressure has been building from decades of frustration with other prominent Armenian diaspora filmmakers (see Mamoulian, Kazan or Verneuil). Several years before this film Egoyan had even mentioned in an interview that he was not a historical filmmaker and that he would not be making a film on the events of 1915.

It's clear that he eventually succumbed to the pressure. Still, external forces aside it does not justify this intentionally obscure and convoluted effort because as an intellectual and high profile Armenian-_Canadian_ artist, more so an Officer of the Order of Canada, he has a responsibility to probe the underlying elements with integrity and create a conduit to bring together Armenians and Turks through visual art in reconciliation and self-awareness. To build such an outlet would after all be in the spirit of the Canadian national character.

Rating:
Summary: art or artifice?
Review: Armenian-Canadian and Egyptian-born film director Atom Egoyan's film Ararat on "the Armenian genocide", while intricately constructed in his usual style, is a disservice to the ideals of progressive constructionism and historically faithful fiction. In this context it is important to consider how the Armenian propaganda machine and extremist groups regularly abuse Armenian art in order to reach their political aims. These fringe elements of the Armenian diaspora (especially in North America) over the 20th century have built the expat Armenian identity squarely on anti-Turkish feelings and this movie works to buttress that aim. The director's life and growing up in Canada as a teenage immigrant also impacts the movie in predictable ways, and is worth commenting on. Egoyan is essentially an identity-convert. He refused his Armenian identity as a teenager and made efforts to be a 'normal' Canadian. He did not speak Armenian. However in college, radical Armenian nationalists helped him rebuild his national identity on powerful anti-Turkish sentiments. Now they could bond around a common enemy. He was Armenian because he was anti-Turkish and vica versa. The nationalist trend in his character became even more significant when he married a beautiful but fanatic Lebanese Armenian, Arsinée Khanjian, who is cast as Ani in the movie. There's nary a single member of the cast who isn't caught up in the politics and this shows.

The 'genocide legacy' in particular has played a crucial role in Egoyan's self-identification like many Armenians in the diaspora, descendants of rural folk forced out of their ancestral lands as refugees by events beyond their control or comprehension. Though almost none of these millions of North American descendants of displaced Armenians had ever been to Turkey (or Armenia for that matter, though this would have been more difficult under the Soviets), many of them continued to believe and financially support the notion that the Turks had attempted to obliterate their race. Mind you these very same Turks and Armenians are descendants of Ottomans, a very genetically diverse and inclusive group (not to be dismissed by glib theories of rape and pillage - cf. Semino et al. Science vol. 290 10 Nov 2000, for an analysis of European Y chromosomes and human migration) who despite early military successes were unarguably one of the most tolerant conquerors in recorded history. It is deeply ironic that these people would nevertheless sabotage their own community after hundreds of years of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and collaboration in art, philosophy, literature, and trade. Most of the fruits of this cultural collaboration is unfortunately unavailable on the web or outside the realm of academia, but not music- see "Istanbul 1925" (a compilation CD by Traditional Crossroads available through Amazon) for a delightful historical example, coincidentally reproduced from the original recordings in the US by Armenian-Americans.

In essence Egoyan has exaggerated the past in order to legitimize his identity, in the cultural obsession which is the primary trait of "modern" Armenian art.

Egoyan bases his script on the (1917) book by Clarence Ussher, who worked as an American missionary in the eastern Ottoman Empire during WWI. However, the script deviates considerably from Ussher's accounts, beyond the boundaries of artistic expression especially for such a politically charged historical subject. Egoyan chooses to focus in his film-within-a-film on the Armenian revolt in the Ottoman city of Van in 1915. However the script conveniently neglects the fact that the actual revolt ended with the victory of Armenians, when the Ottoman governor of Van was forced to flee and was replaced by an Armenian at the conclusion of a bloody joint attack by the Russian army, which occupied the city joined by local Armenian bandits and militia. This Armenian-Russian joint attack resulted in the death of more than 20,000 Van residents, none of whom were armed combatants. Of course these historical 'macro' facts also covered in Ussher's book did not fit well into the victim's psychology which pervades the movie.

Ararat, though I hate to say it, is a typical Armenian propaganda film (see also Midnight Express) and will damage the ongoing attempts for Armenian-Turkish dialogue for the benefit of humanity, ie. for the people who actually have to live in these countries and not kick back on their leather couch in a US/Canadian suburb and pop in a DVD for entertainment/shock value, or for self-serving members of the diaspora hungry for victim psychology consumables. As other unbiased movie critics will attest, Ararat is one of Egoyan's worst films in terms of art value. A good product requires effort, subtlety and meticulousness. Extreme prejudice, ideological perniciousness and cartoonish depictions of good and evil do not improve the artistic quality of a film. That's not to claim Egoyan made this movie out of sheer hatred. The point is that he is compelled to become the voice of the proselytisers and as such does not really attempt with his art to reach into the nature of societal and emotional tensions that underlie cultural obsessions. As he states in interviews he refuses to discuss 'the genocide issue'. When you reject dialogue or debate on an issue you can't claim to make a critical film on the subject. It's likely that extremist Armenian elements within the diaspora acting through his wife and friends (not to mention Bob Lantos) have put enormous pressure on Egoyan to make a film like Ararat. This pressure has been building from decades of frustration with other prominent Armenian diaspora filmmakers (see Mamoulian, Kazan or Verneuil). Several years before this film Egoyan had even mentioned in an interview that he was not a historical filmmaker and that he would not be making a film on the events of 1915.

It's clear that he eventually succumbed to the pressure. Still, external forces aside it does not justify this intentionally obscure and convoluted effort because as an intellectual and high profile Armenian-_Canadian_ artist, more so an Officer of the Order of Canada, he has a responsibility to probe the underlying elements with integrity and create a conduit to bring together Armenians and Turks through visual art in reconciliation and self-awareness. To build such an outlet would after all be in the spirit of the Canadian national character.

Rating:
Summary: Deep, captivating, emotional!
Review: Very few movies leave a deep impact lately, as this one did. Not only because of my armenian background, but the composition and the human interaction. I had to watch it twice to make sure I did not miss anything and still did not catch all the nuances untill I listened to the commentary. I'm swept away! Recommended it to all my friends and family and will share it at work with my non-armenian friends!
Atom, thank you!

Rating:
Summary: A CINEMATIC MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB
Review: (...)BR>There were so many things that I disliked about this film. First, the Raffi character, granted he is young, is so cloying, lacking in fortitude and animation that someone, namely me should punch this guy. Secondly, the most excruciating part of the movie was when the actor(half-Turkish) playing the Turkish general responsible for the local atrocities, initiates a discussion of the question of Turkish culpability with the director. This shamelessly didactic scene was the equivalent of, and I think I would prefer this, someone beating me upside the head with a baseball bat having the Koran inscribed on it. If you want to see a film that exposes fascist genocidal behavior watch Klimov's "Come and See" or Spielberg's "Schindler's List", but DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE.

Rating:
Summary: excellent!!
Review: It has been long overdue for a motion picture film about the first genocide of the century. Finally the world can learn about the atrocities that took place during WWI. I don't know an Armenian who hasn't lost a relative or family member during those dark times. Egoyan's genius comes through in this film.