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Ararat
(Reviewed November 7, 2002)
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Director/writer Atom Egoyan, whose "Exotica" was my far-and-away favorite movie of 1994, risks being too clever by half in this multilayered film about the Armenian genocide of 1915 by the Turks. Instead of simply telling the story of that atrocity (which to this day is denied by Turkey), Egoyan frames it through the device of a movie-within-the-movie that is being made about an Armenian artist whose family members were victims. That would have been okay...but there also are subplots about the Armenian author of a book about that artist, and about her stepdaughter who thinks the author killed her dad, and about the son who is sleeping with that stepsister, and about the gay security guard at the museum where the artist's work is on display, and about his father who just happens to be a customs officer on duty when the stepsister-screwing son comes back from Turkey with some suspicious film canisters, and the guard's gay Turkish lover who happens to play the role of the Turkish military commander in the movie that's being made, for which the stepsister-schtupping son is working as a production assistant.
In other words, there are way too many not-at-all credible coincidences colliding here, to the point where the complications of the plot overshadow the importance of the historical material. All of it leads to an unsatisfying and quite unbelievable "feel-good" ending.
The heart of this film--the murder of a million people, in an incident the world largely has forgotten or never knew about--did not need to be tricked up for easy consumption by art hounds.
"Ararat" is not a terrible movie. It's always interesting and watchable, with a haunting score and some excellent performances. At the same time, it tries far too hard to be flashy...and thereby comes dangerously close to looking exploitative instead of respectful to victims of one of history's greatest crimes against humanity.
Back Row Grade: C
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