Ararat (2002)

Why so much hype?

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I have seen directors who have a hard time leaving things out of their films; John Sayles comes to mind. Egoyan would have made a great picture if he could just have left the Gorky material out of the final script: it just doesn't fit, and slows down the pace considerably. Otherwise, the film-within-a-film idea works fine (as it did for Truffaut in Day For Night) and the actors do a good job. Celia's character is enigmatic at first, her behaviour around Ani very erratic, but as we get to hear more about her past the pieces fall into place. Raffi is an appealing hero--his blend of idealism for his Armenian heritage, longing for his dead father and wish to get out from under his mother's petticoats was well brought out. Christopher Plummer as David the customs agent was the best player: his fifty years of professional experience in acting served him well here. He is so sly, thoughtful and unexpectedly compassionate that I was bowled over.Every year on or around April 24, there is a demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy by members of the Armenian diaspora. I live on that street and have heard the speeches and response from the crowd many times. This film will help the message get out.

What a mind-numbing piece of pure propaganda. I simply cannot believe most users gave good reviews for this movie. Not only is this movie simply a bad movie that is extremely difficult to sit through, it's also one that goes to such great lengths to prove its "message" that the fabrications become utterly hilarious.The director is trying to associate the genocide that took place in Germany with what he proposes was happening in the Ottoman Empire. This desperate attempt is so apparent at some points in the movie that it becomes outrageous. There is a suggestion that the Turks decided to kill all Armenians with a "planned and systematic" decision (a direct quote out of U.N's definition of genocide, mind you!). By the way, these Armenians are the same people with whom the Turks had been living side by side as neighbors, friends, commercial partners.. etc. peacefully in the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. What is completely laughable about this whole situation is the reason given for this so-called genocide: The claim that Armenians got a hold of finances in the Ottoman Empire and were controlling money markets! This bold lie (which lacks the backing of any kind of historical evidence) shows how desperate the director's attempt is at drawing parallels between the Jews in Germany and the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.The characters in the movie lack depth and sophistication. The Turks in the movie are either gay men who are unsure about their identity, drug dealers, rapists or tyrant Pashas. The extreme bias in the movie is so apparent and even the plot weakens and slows down so much at some points that watching some of the scenes is like a torture.The movie depicts Turks as "possessing the latest technological weaponry", armed against the "poor, innocent, helpless" Armenians. What an outrageous lie. The Turks at that point in the World War I were an extremely poor nation, being attacked at all fronts by imperialist powers such as Britain, France, Italy and Russia, who wanted to get a piece of the "cake" that was the Ottoman Empire. In their desperate attempt at survival, a lot of Turkish soldiers could not even get hold of bayonets, let alone rifles, and did not even have proper clothing for fighting! This was a violent war, and both Turks and Armenians were killed. Why doesn't the movie talk about what the Armenian terrorists and guerrilla did to the Turkish villages? Where are the Armenian bandits who raped and killed Turkish women? This is such a one-sided story that it even justifies an abominable terrorist act such as killing an innocent Turkish diplomat. At one point, one of the main characters implies that such "hatred" towards the Turks, and what they supposedly did, justifies and legitimates the assassinations of lots and lots of Turkish diplomats by Armenian terrorists in the 70s and 80s. The terrorists who committed these acts, according to the movie, are so-called freedom fighters.I think it's so ironic that Charles Aznavour at some point wonders: "I can't believe how someone could hate us so much, and this hatred still continues". The imagined hatred he talks about does not exist. What exists, though, is the Armenian hatred that shows throughout the whole movie: this movie is filled with pure hatred towards the Turks, and it's not a subtle hatred either.It makes me sick to the stomach when the imperialist Western powers can so easily blame the Turks for having committed a genocide when their own hands are full of blood from the massacres they've committed both in the heart of Europe, the Americas and also in their colonies. It is extremely hypocritical of them to even talk about "genocide" when they failed to act upon a genocide that was happening before their very eyes in the 90's: the Bosnian genocide. This movie shows how easy it is to manipulate truths and focus on hatred using cinema as a tool.

"Ararat" (2002): Atom Egoyan is one of my favorite writer/directors ("The Sweet Hereafter", "Exotica"). He normally deals in fictional dramas loaded with slow, deep pain and understandings. "Ararat" is also in this style, but he attempts to blend accurate history with speculation with fiction. The common thread is the 1915 slaughter of Armenians by Turks. Egoyan seems to have a more direct connection to his material, with a greater need to educate us to a horrific episode. Because of this, the film moves between various moments in time, people, circumstances, and realities. Although interesting, I think he pulled what I call a "Wim Wenders" – i.e. took on at least 2 or 3 batches of thought probably better served in separate films. I may retract this statement as I walk around thinking it over (which I am always willing to do for Egoyan), but throughout the film I had a sense of too much Agenda getting in the way of Art – a difficult balancing act for any artist, and often wisely avoided. The old "Aesthetic Distance" bugaboo was lingering around every corner.

I enjoyed the film's thoughtfulness. There was a lot of symbolism (a lot) and metaphors used in the film. Egoyan also used wonderful transitions form one scene to the next which made me admire his creativity.I thought the movie was very fair to Turks. It wasn't a simple history movie, it was about the complex relationships people have with one another and within themselves. There were many occurrences that were told through various eyes, and we saw how the story would manifest depending on who told it. I believe this was the central idea of the film.The movie has this focus on a woman's hands in a circular manner throughout the film, it begins with a mothers hands and ends with focus on a mother's hands embracing her child. Reading many reviews here, I notice that the "bad reviews" seem to only critique the historical aspects of the film, and miss these wonderfully meticulous attention given to the artistic aspects of the film.It really upsets me that reviewers are so shallow in their film watching...sorry. I feel bad for them because they miss all these profound themes that Egoyan conveys: ongoing theme of "parent and child" conflicts, truth as a matter of perception, surviving travesty in one's life, finding meaning in death, vindication, and redemption....this film was sooo throughout....Most of the negative reviews are based on biases (as are the positive ones by the way) but the few critiques of the film as an art, are spot on. It's not a perfect film, but how can any film as complex as this one be "perfect?"Don't use science to bash an artistic gem. --- that's mine, but feel free to use it ;)Although, I believe Egoyan, personally thinks what was done by the Ottoman government to the Armenians in 1915 was Genocide. He showed how the Turkish government as well as modern Turks might believe otherwise, how it would be so hard for modern Turks to believe that their ancestors could do such malice.It was not just a one sided documentary-type movie. The movie shows the modern views and beliefs of both Turks and Armenians. Egoyan is at his usual best with multipler perspectives and the back and forth timeline in the movie.The one thing the film was lacking, was some sort of historical background to the Genocide. I believe this is the central reason it was not a huge hit. While the movie is flawless in its acting and direction, it is very esoteric. There should have either been some sort of epilogue or some kind of introduction to the Genocide, because otherwise the film just made it seem like Turks were just raping and murdering, but why? And how? "How could they hate us so much?" This needed to be addressed at the beginning of the film. But nonetheless, Arart is brilliant as far as movie making goes.In my humble opinion.