Ararat

Several plotlines unfold in this movie. All are built around the theme of knowing what happened when outside an event. To understand the parallels being drawn when you first watch the film I respectfully suggest focusing on just two of the plotlines. Juxtapose the main plotline, the perspectives that two native Canadians (one of Turkish descent, the other of Armenian descent) bring to the filming in the present day of a movie about the liquidation by Turks of some number of Armenians and what came before it, with the death of a man and how that death is viewed by that man's wife and daughter. The daughter says the man was essentially driven to death by the wife, the wife says the man died by accident. The moment of the death is depicted in a flashback from a third-person perspective. At the crucial moment, however, the camera pans away and back and we don't know why the man is dead, only that he is dead. As a result both wife and daughter have plausible arguments, but we (and they) will never know the "truth". Just as the film within the film is an attempt to tell but one side's "truth", so do both Canadians, ethnic Turk and ethnic Armenian, adopt positions that suit their ancestral identity and take as their starting point the events that suit their argument, but they will never know the "truth". And meantime two people who are both human beings distance themselves from each other because they cannot live with ambiguity about the past (a past they never experienced to boot). And so: Armenians and Turks are dead. Bosnians and Serbs are dead. Jewish Semites and Arab Semites are dead. Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants are dead. Shall we in this "New World" add to those dead or shall we affirm that we are all one race, the human race. That is the question that Egoyan answers in the affirmative and why I enjoyed this brilliant effort that is at least as deserving of acclaim as Rashomon.

I liked this movie because unlike most movies about massacre and persecution in the Old World, this movie follows up on the persecuted peoples, in this case the Armenians, as they find the life in their new country-of-refusge, Canada. As is the case with real, live human beings, escaping persecution to safety and "freedom" is not enough to address the complexity of the human soul. All of the Armenian-Canadians portrayed in the film live in a New World context and suffer from New World problems along with the alienations and isolations of New World lives. As in all Egoyan movies, most of the film protagonists in this exsemble work do not exist merely as didactic sterotypes. They breath, their relationship to their heritage is compromised in the personal life, they suffer. They suffer in a way which is special to the New World, Canada and The United States alike.Instead of bringing us a dry, linear account, the story of the Armenian massacre in Eastern Turkey is told indirectly, through the filming of a film about it. In many instances the viewer is confused, not certain if it actually is a flashback to the actual past or merely the scenes of the massacre being filmed for the film. Does it matter? What is the relationship between the actual events and the events portrayed in the film? One keeps wondering about that.Like all Egoyan films, the production is professional and smooth. The themes of his earlier movies about emotional disconnection and the use of video and vice to overcome that disconnection appear here as well. That is perhaps what makes this movie special: In exploring his own Armenian heritage, he never drops the ball of his old themese and concerns. He never forgets or ignores thay they are all in Canada now and that the fact that the Armenians were persecuted in the Old World, does not solve their problems of existentiality and their own estrangement in a New World Society.Egoyan offers us a new model for the making of films about cataclyismic, life ruining problems. I wish that movies of this type could have been made about the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

It's a very sympathetic & semi-accurate film.Is entertaining and informative, where the suffrage of Armenian people are concerned.Glad I got this one.

.This is a hidden history that all Christians should learn about, so they realise the reality of Islam (for Islam has not changed, in its bloodthirsty campaign for world domination). And I say this as an Atheist, for this is a hidden history that effects us all in the West. Please realise that this was not simply a Turkish genocide, but in various centuries exactly the same happened to Christian Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria (yes these were all Christian countries). And it also happened to Jewish Iraq too, in 1947 (yes, Iraq was substantially Jewish until 1947, with the greatest Jewish university being at Pumbetheta - now Fallujah).Please also read 'Paradise Lost', by Giles Milton, the destruction of the Greek city of Smyrna in Turkey..

This is the first time I've had a 'dud' from MusicMagpie. Tried playing it on my Sony multi-region dvd player - 'O'A friend tried it on his and it didn't work for him either. Disappointing as I was looking forward to watching thisfilm. I'm sure I've already reviewed and made a complaint but can't find any record on Amazon website.I'm attempting to get MusicMagpie to replace or refund after I return the one I have in my possession.

Foget the 1,2 and 3 star reviews. This is an excellent film, with interwoven stories, the main theme being that of the Armenian Genocide. It is a deeply moving film, leaving you with a desire to learn more of Armenia and its history. It is definitely worth watching.

A masterpiece of the complex Egoyan, who try to explore one of the most cruent tragedy of the history. A perfect dvd, with a perfect price, received in perfect time from a perfect seller.

This movie could have been filmed better involving more information about the Armenian genocide, but it does cover various periods of the last century and generations.