Ararat
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Movie Reviews of Ararat
Movie Review: First Genocide of the 20th century, FINALLY A FILM
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this movie at the Loews theater in NYC by Lincoln Center. I went with 3 other people and thought the theater would be empty. To my surprise, the theater was PACKED and we were barely able to get seats (we needed to sit apart)....this was even after the movie had been in theaters for a while.
I know about the 1915 Armenian Genocide where 1.5-2 million Armenians were exterminated (learned about it in college), and was skeptical about how the movie would come out. I think Atom Egoyan had quite a challenge in making it considering there have been NO PREVIOUS MOVIES BASED ON THIS TRAGIC HISTORICAL EVENT and Turkey still denies it. By judging how packed the theater was, and how quiet everyone was while watching it, I think it's safe to say he did a SPECTACULAR JOB!
Reading about it in a textbook is one thing, but watching it on screen is another! If you were not moved while watching this movie then you are probably as heartless as the turks and nazi's who commited Genocide! I recommend any college, university, or high school professors and teachers to use this movie as an aid to lectures on Genocide and Haulocaust. The movie within a movie helps make the history more clear.
If you don't believe me, then read the NEW YORK TIMES review:
"... Ararat is hands down the year's most thought-provoking film."
It's not just a story that deals with the Armenian Genocide and issues of truth and denial....it deals with so many other issues people in present day society live with every day. There is a struggle between the loyalty toward family vs. loyalty toward significant others.
Put all the secondary and tertiary story lines and themes aside. This has been the first movie about the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE-the first Genocide of the 20th century (before the haulocaust) and it was long overdue. It's a tragic chapter in the history of humanity where Armenians as well as Greeks, Assyrians and other Christians were also persecuted and massacred.
Hopefully this movie will educated more people about what happened so we won't be destined to repeat history. This is evident in history when Hitler gave encouragement to his followers by saying.....who after all remembers the Armenians?
Read the book "an american physician in turkey" by Clarence Ussher; the movie is based on it. It's a story about an American missionary Physician who goes to Turkey to help the Armenians during the Genocide. It's an eyewitness account of what happened...
Movie Review: ARARAT is a glowing film
Summary: 5 Stars
ARARAT is one of the more demanding films by the talented Atom Egoyan and at the same time is one of the more satisfying and literate. Many viewers have commmented on how confusing the film is in its narrative technique, but it is this intricate maze effect of telling a story that for me is its most powerful quality. Perhaps having recently read Peter Balakian's THE BURNING TIGRIS added to the experience of the historical aspect of Egoyan's story: the Armenian Genocide by the Turks is profoundly felt by not only Armenians but by all defenders of human rights and at the same time the Turks utterly deny this incident in history. How genteel of Egoyan to put the whole 'debate' into the form of a movie within a movie. He has contemporary characters (Raffi, a young man searching for the truth to his past incredibly well portrayed by David Alpay, Ani his mother is an Art Historian played to perfection by Arsinee Khanjian, Christopher Plummer is a Customs Agent who is dealing with his own demons, Elias Koteas is an actor asked to play the role of a Turk in the film being directed by Charles Aznavour and just happens to be the gay lover of Christopher Plummer's son). Egoyan has Raffi photograph the few remaining shrines that stand for the evidence of the existence of his lost people while his mother continues to teach about the artist Arshille Gorky who escaped the genocide to move to New York and become established as an exemplary painter but was only able to erase the memories of the genocide by his own suicide. Egoyan constantly shifts from the contemporary story to historical re-enactments as they are being shot as scenes for a film. Yes, there are moments of time warp when as a viewer we are never sure just what is real and what is manufactured on film, but isn't that the main problem with the question of the Armenian Genocide? With quiet intensity Egoyan places us in the shoes of history, of memory, of personal demons, of ethnic and national demons and in doing so he opens our eyes more powerfuly than an ordinary documentary ever could.Not only is the story superb, but the filming and the acting is absolutley first rate. While the overall story is about despair and sadness, there are moments of ecstatic joy that come when you least expect them. Some fragments of the story are resolved, some are left for further introspection. This film is an extraordinary achievement.
Movie Review: Brilliant and thought provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Movie Review: Regardless of the subject, this is a great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
A while back a friend of mine (a *HUGE* Egoyan fan) and I (who views his movies kind of as "take it or leave it") got into a heated debate about this movie over lunch. I loved the movie; I thought that it was intricate, had great characters which were subtle and well written, and flowed from the past to the present beautifully. My friend could not forgive the "movie about making a movie" plot; he thought it was just too cheesy and it ruined the whole experience for him.
There are some heated reviews of this movie based on it's subject--did it really happen? did it really happen as Egoyan portrayed it? are people using the term "Holocaust" and "genocide" injudiciously?
For me, when I think of this movie, I think of the conversation between me and my friend. Just as a movie, regardless of Armenian "experience", this is still a great movie.
What I loved about it was the personal relationships outside of the broader scope of historical events-- a young man trying to navigate between his relationship with his mother and his girlfriend, a father coming to terms with his gay son, an actor trying to portray something larger than himself, and all the characters trying to come to terms with an event from which they are all far removed. For me this movie is about a historical event (subject to much debate) _AND_ the inter-twining lives of people who otherwise would never have met.
In response to my sullen and disappointed friend: I thought the "movie about making a movie" plot was brilliant because you never know what you are watching--the "truth" about what really happened, or the "movie" the characters are making about what happened or what they want people to *think* happened.
Now, one could make an argument that it's impossible for me to disregard the controversial "subject" of the movie and just see an inter-play between characters, and for those of you who think that . . . well, that's what I enjoyed about this movie.
PS: I thought the speacial features on the DVD were kind of lame and didn't match my emotional experience watching the movie. Just skip the features.
Movie Review: The Complete Picture..
Summary: 5 Stars
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.