SaroyanLand (2013) User Reviews

Powerful Narrative of Loss and Identity

[l_rawjalaurence · 8/10 · 5 August 2014]

In 1964 the American writer William Saroyan went on a pilgrimage to Eastern Turkey to rediscover the land where his family had grown up. When they had been forced to emigrate in the early twentieth century, there was a large Armenian community around the Bitlis area; but matters all changed as a result of the 1915 upheaval. Saroyan himself was born in California; but he had been brought up as an Armenian speaker, even if he could not read the language. Lusin Dink's film retraces Saroyan's (Norikyan Artur's) through a series of point-of-view shots; we never see his face, but rather see what he sees as he travels through his "homeland" which he has hitherto never visited. On the soundtrack we hear Saroyan's actual words, spoken by Ara Mgrdichian. SAROYANLAND makes us aware of the historicity of the trip by having Saroyan travel in a mid-Sixties automobile; this is contrasted with the landscapes and cities he visits, which are all resolutely contemporary. Through this contrast director Dink makes us aware of how little and how much has changed; the buildings might remain the same as they were in the early part of the twentieth century, but now there are no Armenian people inhabiting those areas. Hence the film recounts a narrative of loss, both physical as well as emotional: despite his success as a writer, Saroyan understands that he can never really recover his roots, despite being able to revisit the sites of his birth. SAROYANLAND also operates as an allegory for all Armenians living in Turkey, both past and present; like Saroyan, they have had to cope with the trauma of displacement and marginalization. The director herself is the daughter of journalist Hrant Dink, a prominent figure who was murdered several years ago. Even though there remains a community in İstanbul, they still do not feel part of mainstream Turkish society; they remain on the periphery, just like Saroyan himself. The narrative is slow-moving, giving viewers plenty of time to focus on the landscape, as well as the reactions of the people to Saroyan's presence. Nonetheless SAROYANLAND is a poignant yet powerful film, whose subject-matter remains as significant today as it did half a century ago.

A sober, sometimes beautiful story of inevitable disappointment

[Nozz · 8/10 · 14 October 2014]

The man who said "You can't go home again" wasn't even Armenian. How much more true the saying is for a man born across the ocean from what he thinks of as home, when the whole community he thinks of as his own has disappeared from there. William Saroyan idealized his father (at least in the passages the movie quotes; not everywhere else) and he wrote a poem that the movie quotes about Lake Van, which is back in the old country, when he'd never seen the place. So although his father's home town in the old country may be picturesque (and it's to the movie's credit that the homeland doesn't look too sentimentalized that way), it can't measure up to the expectations of the fellow born in exile. The disappointment is seldom explicit, but the movie doesn't really need to do more than quote Saroyan while showing his father's home town of Bitlis: "There wasn't an Armenian in the crowd." Elsewhere, the movie quotes Saroyan (where exactly these quotations come from is hard to tell if you don't remember reading them, although the sources are listed as a bunch at the end of the movie) as saying that actually people are just people. In other words, this particularization of the Armenians is just a device. I'm sure he meant it, but I'm also sure he didn't mean it. In the well selected quotes from Saroyan and the accompanying (but not slavishly accompanying) visuals, the film slowly and respectfully lays out the situation, which in today's world is a situation many of us share in relation to our heritage.

The identty of mortal

[verbalask · 7/10 · 27 April 2020]

When i watch this documentary i remember that book of written by Amin Maaloof of the call by Les Identites Meurtrieres. In this book Maaloof say about exile situation that before every people do not become an exile, they become an immigrant. He also say that "my identity is what makes me unlike any other.". It same for Sorayan too. Sorayan write in his biography Bitlisli, Ermenian, American and therefore, as their belongings increase, their identity emerges as a special case. Documentary reflect us this speciallity. First thing first director do not show us Sorayan face. That means, director say us just think situation of imiggrant, go back of a writer.

I think people who watch this documentary should read Maaloof's book.