Review of Ararat (2002) by Terri H — 04 Aug 2008

I feel a bit guilty not giving this film more stars considering how its one of the most important events in Assyrian history. However, I think Atom Egoyan, the director, royally screwed up what could have been an amazing film.

In some respects, it makes sense to have Egoyan be the film's director given his Armenian heritage. However, in terms of artistic capability, he was simply the wrong choice to make this film. The scope of this project required someone who has helmed such projects.

Its a very ambitious story and based on Egoyan's past films, I think he was overwhelmed by the material. I think the film should have simply focused on the historical aspect of the film. It should have been a straight up historical drama.

Instead we get these other stories set in modern times that deal with an airport security guard's ignorance of Armenian history, the making of the historical drama that was being shot, and a woman's issues with her stepmother.

None of those were important and they detracted so much from the historical portion. It was as if Egoyan would not admit he could not make a big historical epic and he made up for it by interspersing the film with small modern day stories.

Anyway, as important as the historical facts underlying this film are, skip this and wait for someone to make a real story about the genocide. Oh and by the way, I was a bit annoyed that Assyrians were not mentioned anywhere in this film.

There were thousands of Assyrians killed in the genocide and that should have been given at least a small acknowledgment.