Canadian Film Forum

larisa · Junior Data inscrierii: 30/Noi/2008 Mesaje: 7

i know we had quite an exhaustive talk on this subject, but isn't anyone interesting in posting any comments? i kind of miss reading your thoughts on the films we see.

ramona · Junior Data inscrierii: 03/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 18

Really? What about your own thoughts? Smile

The truth is that I'm still thinking of it :hmmm:

There were those too realistic scenes that I can't get out of my mind and I realized something: I get more emotional and touched by this kind of tough scenes, even though I'm aware that they used a lot of excepțional effects, when I see them in a film having more or less to do with some real events. Haven't you ever felt that it is exactly the element which binds reality to fiction that gives the most strength to its effect on people?
For instance, one of these days, my husband watched this film, Death Race, which is full of killing and blood and ... anyway, horrible images, but that didn't impress me more than the episodes referring to the Armenian genocide in Ararat.
Speaking of shocking scenes, the one with the raped mother holding her daughter's hand seems to me the most powerful in this film, then the horrors described by the character dr Ussher when Ani interrupted the scene they were filming.
And when you think that this kind of terrible things have always happened... and still do.
"What a piece of work is man..." Indeed!

ioana · Junior Data inscrierii: 01/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 10

I do. And I will. Smile

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larisa · Junior Data inscrierii: 30/Noi/2008 Mesaje: 7

I was surfing the net reading about the Armenian genocide and on our beloved wikipedia I found a reference to Van and I thought that you might be interested as well :-)

"Events at Van, April 1915
Further information: Van Resistance

Armenian troops holding a defense line against Turkish forces in the walled city of Van in May 1915On April 19, 1915, Jevdet Bey demanded that the city of Van immediately furnish him 4,000 soldiers under the pretext of conscription. However, it was clear to the Armenian population that his goal was to massacre the able-bodied men of Van so that there would be no defenders. Jevdet Bey had already used his official writ in nearby villages, ostensibly to search for arms, which had turned into wholesale massacres. The Armenians offered five hundred soldiers and to pay exemption money for the rest in order to buy time, however, Djevdet accused Armenians of "rebellion," and spoke of his determination to "crush" it at any cost. "If the rebels fire a single shot," he declared, "I shall kill every Christian man, woman, and" (pointing to his knee) "every child, up to here."

On April 20, 1915, the armed conflict of the Van Resistance began when an Armenian woman was harassed, and the two Armenian men that came to her aid were killed by Turkish soldiers. The Armenian defenders protecting 30,000 residents and 15,000 refugees in an area of roughly one square kilometer of the Armenian Quarter and suburb of Aigestan with 1,500 able bodied riflemen who were supplied with 300 rifles and 1,000 pistols and antique weapons. The conflict lasted until General Yudenich came to rescue them".

see you tomorrow

ramona · Junior Data inscrierii: 03/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 18

Thank you, Larisa, for the information. So, once again, this film has a very solid base in the historical reality, that's something we can all agree on Smile

Now, I'd like to send my special thoughts to someone unic and, why not, share them with you :-P

So, [b]Happy, happy Birthday, Ioana![/b]
:hbd:

I know this is out of the topic, but there are more chances for you to see this here than anywhere else :-D

melinda.tindela · Junior Data inscrierii: 04/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 15

[url]http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Genocide_Photos[/url]
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!!

For those who dare to look into the eyes of horror.

anca · Junior Data inscrierii: 30/Noi/2008 Mesaje: 15

Let's talk, Larisa, about Ararat! Well. we all know that Gorky was a surviver of the massacre at Van. I wonder if he would have become such a great painter if he wouldn't had this dreadful experience. Such a bound situation can be turned into a positive one, as art. The armenian history is known through Gorky's paintings, generally through cultural object or artifacts. That's why, maybe, Gorky is a mute character in the film. His painting speaks for himself.
I would add that I found very moving the scene in which Gorky erased his mother hands. It's a powerful and dramatic one.

anca · Junior Data inscrierii: 30/Noi/2008 Mesaje: 15

, ioana!

We all said that we didn't know to much about armenian massacre.Now we do, and from various points of view. The story is told from an scientifically point of view (Anni's book), from an artistic one (Edward movie and Robert's screenplay) and from and individual point of view ( Raffi's images and his personal reflections). It is an incredible movie, but "There's so much you're expected to do and that you want to do. You fight for final cut, but in the end, you're at the mercy of viewers." (Egoyan)

ioana · Junior Data inscrierii: 01/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 10

Thx. :-*

I'll try to answer, once more, that 'Why?'. Why did Egoyan choose this formula of a film in a film, instead of making a historic one?

Because he addresses an international public. Had he chosen to make a 90-minute film full of scenes showing the horrors during the genocide, I wonder how many viewers the film would've had. After a quarter of an hour, most of the more feeble people would've stopped watching, shutting the Armenian genocide out, as it would have been too much.

Why mix the 'real' story of some 'real' people with the great story of a nation? Because we tend to react more to happenings which could be ours. History, the history of a nation, well, they are concepts which hover above our petty lives, without really interfering in the tedium of our mundane existance. By bringing history into the lives of David, Raffi, Ani, Edward, Egoyan makes it part of their, and thus, our lives.

Why does Egoyan sometimes warn us that the scene we are about to see or the scene we have just seen is part of the film within the film, whereas other times the transition is sudden? It's the same reason why he still adds scenes from the inner film, after it is already finished (the burning of the brides, for example). Because this is the way he saw the film, this is how he felt he had to do it. Egoyan is an artist, Ararat is his work of art, and that's it.

This explanation is probably stupid and not worthy of a philologist, but let me tell you a really short story. I was still a highschool student when Stefan Augustin Doinas came to Satu Mare to launch his latest book of essays. We went to the biggest museum in our small city, in the biggest conference room, and there he was, sitting at this really big table, surrounded by big personalities of ours. They started talking about his work, about the way he was influenced by I don't know who, about how he tried to induce I don't know what kind of feeling, about the reason why he chose to use I don't know what (forgive my I don't knows, but I really can't remember). He was sitting there, listening, without moving a single muscle on his face. And when they had finished, he said in a flat voice that most of the things which had been said were vivid imagination, and the reason why he did what he did the way he did it was because he felt that was the way he had to do it. Full stop.

What I'm trying to say here is that every now and then we could forget about all the whys and simply enjoy art. :-P

One more thing: thank you for the great films. Smile

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Coman_Alina · Trimis: 04/02/2009 23:39 Titlul subiectului: Ararat

Watching "Ararat" I've noticed that Egoyan doesn't blame Turkish population in the past or in the present. The most frustrating matter concerning Armenian genocide is denial. So, he simply tells us events that a lot of people had no idea about (I was one of them).
Nowadays, 21 countries and 42 US states have adopted resolutions acknowledging Armenian Genocide as a historical event. And still the Turkish state denies it happened.
Still, the modern Turkish state estimates that 300.000 Armenians died between 1914 and 1918 (even if it is not called genocide). The accepted figures are very different: Encyclopedia Britanica refers to 600.000 Armenians and Armenia and other states estimate 1.500.000 people.

ioana · Junior Data inscrierii: 01/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 10

And if you think of what Remy says in Les invasions barbares, the figures related to the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide are nothing compared to what the Spanish and the Portuguese did in South America, a few centuries ago.

I'm being cynical, I know. It's just something that came to my mind.
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ramona · Junior Data inscrierii: 03/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 18

Speaking about the same episode, Remy concluded that "The history of mankind is a history of horrors", but why must these horrors happen? Is it in the human blood, in our DNA? Because, there have always been people who would see other people or groups as aliens, be it because of their different religion, or traditions, or language or for no reason... I really can't get it!

On the other hand, just like Danielle puts it in The Decline...:" J'ai l'impression qu'on ne saura jamais le fond de l'histoire" Indeed, everything becomes questionable nowadays and that could be so frustrating.
Here's a question that came to my mind (together with its answer :lol:

):
What do history and a magnifying glass have in common?
...They both distort reality. :yes:

Now seriously, the Turkish denial is a reality and they have their reasons in denying "the genocide thesis", as strange as it may seem. Before we watched Ararat, Mr Otoiu had mentioned Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish noveslist, whose statements may explain in a way the Turkish people's reaction to the Armenian issue.
Here's what I found where else than on wikipedia :D
The criminal charges against Pamuk resulted from remarks he made during an interview in February 2005 with the Swiss publication Das Magazin, a weekly supplement to a number of Swiss daily newspapers: the Tages-Anzeiger, the Basler Zeitung, the Berner Zeitung and the Solothurner Tagblatt. In the interview, Pamuk stated, "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." Turkish historians were divided over the remarks.
Pamuk stated that he was consequently subjected to a hate campaign that forced him to flee the country. He returned later in 2005, however, to face the charges against him. In an interview with BBC News, he said that he wanted to defend freedom of speech, which was Turkey's only hope for coming to terms with its history: "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past."

So is it possible that this face of truth may have been hidden from the Turkish nation? Anyway, they should come to terms with one another, so that they have "closure", eventually.

ioana · Junior Data inscrierii: 01/Dec/2008 Mesaje: 10

I asked one of my colleagues, teacher of history, whether the Armenian genocide is taught in Romania. He said it isn't, as they are a people too small to take into account when teaching the history of the world. He gave me the 1.5 million victims figure, and said that this denial of the Armenian genocide is one of the three big problems Turkey has to solve in order to join EU.
As far as the official position of EU on the matter is concerned, there aren't any laws like those in North America, and different countries in the Union adopt different positions toward the genocide.
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