The Lark Farm (2007)

Considering the difficult subject, the directors are masterfully telling the story of the fate of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. This is the first film of it's kind, and as a descendant of Genocide survivors, it was the film I always hoped to see.The film was wonderful at finding the visual beauty that could transform the horrific events of the Armenian Genocide into a universally relatable story. Without omitting the cruelty and atrocities that Armenians so painfully recognize from the stories of our parents and grandparent, the film focuses on the humane more than the inhumane, the beauty rather than the ugliness of humankind without being unrealistic or contrived.I enjoyed the costumes, the sets, the cinematography, and (most of )the acting. My respects to the film-makers and actors for having the courage to approach this subject, and succeeding at making a historically accurate film, that was also full of emotion and human drama. Bravi!

I would describe the "La Masseria Delle Allodole" as a very weak film. When I first watched the film, the first idea that came into my mind was that the film was produced by a foreigner not by an Armenian film-maker. The plot is too primitive I would describe it even somehow without logic. You can understand at the very first sight that the film is produced by a person who didn't live the tragedy that he tries to transfer us. The characters are fake.. The character of Nunik the Armenian girl seems to have nothing to do with real Armenian girl, her behavior is disgusting and not adequate. I am very disappointed with this movie. By watching this movie you can't understand what Armenian people in fact passed through. The inhuman tortures of Armenian people, their starvation, cruel deportation from their motherland described in the movie totally correspond to the reality, however the producers weren't able to show the true emotional experience of Armenians. Their real sufferings and feelings are much deeper and tragic. I think you should be an Armenian so that you really describe that pain. Unfortunately I have to say that I didn't like the acting either. It was not persuasive, it was artificial and insincere.

Let me start by saying this: until this movie I was a huge fan of the Taviani Brothers. They have contributed so much to the contemporary Italian film-making industry and their epic films such as "Padre Padrone" and "La Notte di San Lorenzo" are landmarks in not only Italian, but also global film history.Therefore, you could guess how much of a disappointment this movie was for me. If the attempt was to make an Armenian "Schindler's List", the end-result is far from it. The plot is predictable to the extent of being boring, the characters are flat, the acting is hammy, and there are so many gaps and contradictions in the story-line. More importantly, you do not get even a glimpse of the usual luring cinematography of Taviani Brothers, something which they are deservedly famous for.All these might be because, probably for the first time in their career, the directors are indeed not very familiar with the topic they are treating. They do not feel as comfortable as they do when they move on "Italian terrain", the people and the stories of which they know almost by heart.Hence, you end up with unrealistic (the scene on the forced march to Aleppo) or not thoroughly explained (who were the "Young Turks", did they have a plan to massacre the Armenians, if so what exactly was the plan or the motives behind it??)scenes. Add to this the over-exaggerated acting (the love story between Youssof and Nonik fills you with pain, not because of its eventual horrible ending, but due to the inadequacy of its acting)...you get a very very weak film indeed.The whole controversy about the Armenian genocide...well, I leave it to the Turks and the Armenians to discuss that and (hopefully!!) come to an agreement between themselves in the future. However, it is indeed such a pity that two very important Italian directors succumbed to the temptation of making a film on a "hot topic", (probably with the idea that it would "sell") and sacrificing in between, all artistic considerations. Leave the controversy aside, but purely from a cinematographic perspective, "Masseria delle Allodole" was indeed a huge disappointment!

It started in an uncertain way, with too many obvious passages and with characters showing at once what we should expect of them. Yet a surprise was in the making. The first part seemed a déjà vu exercise and might have been shot about anything else - I feel I have seen exactly the same plot in some TV film on the Jewish Holocaust. Then the killing began and the whole world was changed. The realm of the obvious became the realm of terror. Villains and heroes change places. Some clues take a long time to unveil, and this is good. The realm of horror is the right background of an epic tale of suffering and resistance. Here, hallucinations and dreams are the food of the mind and of the empty body. Reality is cruel and crude and mind-torturing and in this pitch of darkness we are really surprised to witness a few really human beings. The epic resistance of Nonik and the unexpected accusation of Yussuf make for a great tale on a few remains of humanity.