Ararat

Although it was loudly promoted, I have not seen much positive critique of this film, other than those written by Armenians. When I watched it at the gala opening of TIFF, I wondered how such a dark film was chosen for opening night. There should be some politics involved. Ararat is a chauvinistic story filled with religious symbolism. Evil Turks (Muslim) versus innocent Armenian (Christian). American savior (missionary Dr. Ussher) in troubled lands..Difficult to watch.. Everything seems out of context and hang in the air because a central theme in that time slice of Anatolian history, namely the struggle for more territory between Turks and Armenians is avoided, missed or obscured. As a matter of fact, Ottoman Empire was colapsing and not only Armenians but also Greeks, Slavs and Arabs were trying to get a bigger territory out of it. Anatolian tragedy is still a tragedy even if one of the parties would not be presented as pure innocents. Egoyan had a very powerful story to be told but he missed it badly. He said that he gave voice also the Turks, but there is only one Turk in the movie (Ali) who is depicted as a unrefined, cruel man. I was expecting better from Egoyan. A twisted story makes a bad film even at the hands of a good artist like Egoyan..

source: Ararat

Ararat

I have seen other film by Atom Egoyan. I respect him as an artist. This film, Ararat, is lovingly made and very sensitive to a horrid subject. I found the acting very good, especially that by Christopher Plummer and David Alpay. I am shocked to see how limited the release was in the U.S. 6 screens, in the whole country? This film deserves far better treatment. I am also dismayed by the official IMDb blurb "Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide claims." Very good until the last word, "claims." Political correctness has no such place here. The only country in the world which continues to deny the Armenian Holocaust is Turkey.

A terrific rough style cast in a story about denial and the truth of living in denial. At first, I thought the movie was about the Armenian Genocide, but its not. It's about a families struggle in the present day world trying to live knowing that the genocide is their past. Many interesting characters are introduced throughout the story. The plot thickens as characters appear in the movie and the movie within the movie. The issue about denial is stronger than the truth. The issue about Turkey is made many times and is the last thing we see at the end of the movie, still, this is not a movie about the Genocide and Turkey's true intentions, its about the aftermath and the denial that becomes the truth.

I really liked this movie. I've read review's by Berardinelli, Ebert, NYTimes, and Wash Post, and they are unduly critical, possibly based on the director's capabilities. However, I feel that the characters and the story interweaved masterfully, and that the relationship of Christopher Plummer and his gay son are an interesting parallel with the intolerance of the Turk's (majority Muslim's) and the Armenian's (minority Christian's); Also, the way that Raffi carried his hatred second-hand and that hatred got even more trumped up with the Elias Koteas current-day character was effective in showing how these clashes can sustain over generations upon generations. Another superb aspect of the film was how the cinematic production within the movie acted as the segway between the current and past events because the actors are also characters in the "main" movie; that's a structural piece of "real" cinematic mastery.

Loved this Movie and have seen it many times! Modern day movie with historical facts about the Armenian Genocide. Great Production!

This is a very flawed movie by a well-regarded director. One major problem is the star-role presence of his ubiquitous (in his films) wife, who can't act well and simply cannot use her voice expressively or effectively. Her monotonic droning, in film after film, is irritating. Another is that he doesn't have the directorial chops to film in an epic style such as the Armenian battle scenes require. The lopsided voting pattern here seems to be the result of ethnocentric ballot-box stuffing. All those "10"s could only mean that thousands of Egoyan's compatriots have invaded the board and voted politically rather than esthetically or rationally.

The main focus of Atom Egoyan's "Ararat" is the Armenian Genocide. Beyond that it addresses the nature of truth and its representation through art (such as the issue of whether a movie should recreate historical events). The genocide itself is also the subject of the recent movie "The Promise". We may never know the full extent of what happened in April 1915, or why the genocide faded from memory. What we do know is that suppressing the memory of a tragedy creates the risk that it will get repeated. Indeed, it was only thanks to the reports from some witnesses - among them Clarence Ussher - that the Armenian Genocide came to light. I recommend the movie, and I hope that in addition to drawing attention to the genocide, it draws attention to how World War I caused much of the bloodshed that has happened since.

The high frequency of attacks on this film as being 'proArmenian propaganda' is a testament to the power of the movie. The historical accuracy or moral culpability of the Turks vs. the Armenians in this conflict is not within my knowledge base to judge absolutely, nor that of most of the posters on IMDB, I suspect, so I will just judge this as a movie. Egoyan has managed the trick of avoiding a simple tearjerker black hat white hat polemic like Mel Gibson's The Patriot (or Braveheart or Passion of the Christ or We Were Soldiers or Chicken Run or....) or even 'Schindler's List' by the technique of distancing the audience to one remove, by making his film actually about an Armenian-Canadian filmmaker making a film about the Armenian Holocaust. Obviously, 'Ararat' still manages to stir up powerful emotions, but by also examining the responses of the film cast and crew and their loved ones and others with whom they come into contact the film attains a more mature and introspective value.