Ararat (2002)

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.

Director:

Atom Egoyan

Writer:

Atom Egoyan

Stars:

Simon Abkarian, Charles Aznavour, Brent Carver

12 wins & 13 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Simon Abkarian	...	Arshile Gorky
Charles Aznavour	...	Edward Saroyan
Christopher Plummer	...	David
Arsinée Khanjian	...	Ani
Setta Keshishian	...	Dinner Guest / Wailing Mother
David Alpay	...	Raffi
Shant Srabian	...	Dinner Guest #3 / Doctor #1
Marie-Josée Croze	...	Celia
Elias Koteas	...	Ali / Jevdet Bay
Brent Carver	...	Philip
Max Morrow	...	Tony
Christie MacFadyen	...	Janet
Dawn Roach	...	Customs Officer
Garen Boyajian	...	Young Gorky
Lousnak Abdalian	...	Gorky's Mother

Storyline

People tell stories. In Toronto, an art historian lectures on Arshile Gorky (1904?-1948), an Armenian painter who lived through the genocide in Turkey in 1915. A director invites the historian to help him include Gorky's story in a film about the genocide and Turkish assault on the town of Van. The historian's family is under stress: her son is in love with his step-sister, who blames the historian for the death of her father. The daughter wants to revisit her father's death and change that story. An aging customs agent tells his son about his long interview with the historian's son, who has returned from Turkey with canisters of film. Parents and children. All the stories connect.

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Plot Keywords:

genocide | armenian | armenian genocide | death | turkish | 

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Taglines:

In a world full of denial, how do you determine who's telling the truth?

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence, sexuality/nudity and language

Details

Official Sites:

egofilmarts.com [ca] Miramax

Country:

Canada France

Language:

English Armenian French German Turkish

Release Date:

4 September 2002 (France)

Also Known As:

Ararát

Filming Locations:

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$211,130 (USA) (15 November 2002)

Gross:

$1,554,566 (USA) (24 January 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Alliance Atlantis Communications, Serendipity Point Films, Ego Film Arts

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Italian release of this film was intended to be on April 24th 2003. However, its showing was unexpectedly banned by Italian authorities a day before the planned release, with the authorities explaining that the film's distributor had failed to submit in time the application to obtain the required censorship certificate.

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Quotes

Rouben: Every scene in this film is based on this document.

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Crazy Credits

Closing disclaimers: 1) The historical events in this film have been substantiated by holocaust scholars, national archives, and eyewitness accounts, including that of Clarence Ussher. 2) To this day, Turkey continues to deny the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

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Connections

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

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Soundtracks

"P.L.U.C.K."
(Politically Lying, Unholy, Cowardly Killers)
Performed by System of a Down
Written by Daron Malakian (as Malakian) / Serj Tankian (as Tankian) / Shavo Odadjian (as Odajian) / John Dolmayan (as Dolmayan)
DDevil Music (ASCAP)/ System of Down (ASCAP)/ Sony/ ATV Tunes LLC,
All rights on behalf of DDevil Music, System of A Down & Sony/ ATV Tunes LLC
Administered by SONY/ ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37202
All rights reserved. Used by Permission

User Reviews

A hopeless hodgepodge

I don't have a dog in the historic fight here, but expected to learn something I didn't know from the film. As a history buff, I had high hopes of insight into the historic context of the time, the actions taken by the two sides, how they viewed the situation, and/or why they did what they did.

Instead, the opportunity was squandered on a long, drawn out, absolutely boring melodrama involving some obscure family conflict, a gratuitous if titillating sex scene, some bizarre injection of homosexuality and atheism creating stress in an aging character with nothing at all to do with the history, and a lot of drippy and pointless personal drama. The only history to be seen consisted of one dimensional Turks and Armenians shooting each other, especially the former shooting and raping civilians of the latter.

The actual historical actors were like cartoon characters. One might, for example, have liked to know that the American doctor was doing in the middle of Turkey. Or why the Turk commander felt he needed to do what he did. Instead, the historic conflict is treated with all the depth of a Road Runner cartoon, while the main focus is on some kid and his girlfriend going through an emotional life crisis. Either, done well, might have been interesting. Both mashed together and done poorly are like a cherry pie with asparagus filling.

Boring, unenlightening, and patched together, it was as if someone had taken some cheap footage of war from a century ago and randomly spliced in parts of various soap operas. What a waste of an opportunity.

This movie just sucked. I don't usually express my opinion that way, but frankly it just sucked. I can understand why either side with a political axe to grind might feel compelled to love or hate the film, but having none I found it almost unwatchably boring.