A Portrait of Arshile (1995)
Egoyan juxtaposes home-video images of his son Arshile with a self-portrait of the famed Armenian artist, Arshile Gorky; Egoyan narrates in English, while his wife narrates in Armenian. The self-portrait made from a photo of the artist as a child at the time of the great massacre of the Armenians is used as a focus for meditations on the nature of self-awareness, artistic expression, and the relationship between the artist and the viewer.
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the audience applauded
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
As a avid "Atom Egoyan fan," I was delighted to see this short on the DVD for his latest film "Ararat."A Portrait of Arshile is a film that seems to have been a personal short film made solely for the purpose of celebrating his son, Arshile. The film is mostly a shot of Arshile looking into the camera, with Armenian and English narration. It's made aiming the narration explaining to Arshile where his name comes from, and the history behind who he is named after, Arshile Gorky, famed Armenian-American painter and Genocide survivor.A cute film, well done.