Ararat (2002)

In spite of a lukewarm critical response, the fact that Ararat won Best Motion Picture at the Genie Awards and that it would be a definite personal film to Atom Egoyan sounds promising. He viewed his better films The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and Remember (2015) as having allusions to the Armenian Genocide, which impacted his family; Ararat is meant to deal with the often neglected subject head-on, or so you'd think. Rather, it deals with a crew in Toronto that makes a film about the genocide. Seeing snippets of their work, I wish Egoyan had made some version of that instead.I rarely use this criticism of film, but Ararat is excessively preachy, much of it coming from David Alpay and Bruce Greenwood, who spout out facts at length, often without a lot of emotion, and often to people who wouldn't be much interested. A lot of this is entirely irrelevant a customs official like Plummer's character, no matter how the film attempts to spin this. When Alpay's character quotes Hitler about no one remembering the Armenians, Elias Koteas' character, who'd earlier questioned if the account went exactly as it is said to, and who notes this matter is behind him and his colleagues born in Canada, echoes the Nazi dictator's sentiment in a deeply sinister voice. He has gone from mild skepticism to all-out Hitler, in Egoyan's shameless breach of Godwin's law.Much of this smacks as false. When Greenwood's character, an actor, is advised to read a book that inspired the film, the character replies he has read the book, along with every single thing ever written about the artist it's about, the Armenian Genocide, and the Armenian people in general, and the character isn't even said to be Armenian. Is this the kind of in-depth expertise Egoyan finds in his actors on a regular basis? Do actors who've read every book ever written about the broadest of subjects frequently line up at his auditions, and he gets his pick? I'm sure every other director envies him.Films about films are too common. Occasionally, you get a really great one that makes it okay, such as Sunset Blvd. Most of the time, it's just narcissistic, and in this case, it definitely gets in the way of the awareness Egoyan was hoping to create.

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.

I am sad to admit that Ararat is a cinematographic failure. The only scenes which I enjoyed were of Archile Gorky's played by incredible Simon Abkarian. The storyline is confusing and disorienting, "movie inside the movie" concept is very hard to pull off even for a accomplished filmmakers and Egoyan fails miserably at that. I find it difficult to watch how actors such as Plummer and Aznavour struggle to believe their lines and I don't blame them. The script is just bad. I wanted to show this film to some of my friends who are not Armenian and know little about the genocide, but after watching it twice myself, I realized they will not learn anything from it. One day a film will come out about the Armenian genocide which will touch people's hearts and fight Turkish propaganda machine at the same time. Ararat of Egoyan fails at both.

"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.