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Noah's
ark may or may not have landed on biblical Mount Ararat, but two
thousand years later the majestic snow-capped peak remains a
powerful symbol. The Japanese have Mount Fuji, the French
Mont Blanc, and the Armenians--Ararat. In
Egoyan's 2002 film Ararat also serves as a symbol for
Armenia's difficult past and the attempt by the Armenians to
recapture their own history. The Pandora's box in question
is the Armenian Genocide of 1915, still not acknowledged by the
government of modern-day Turkey.
In
Egoyan's film-within-a-film, Charles Aznavour plays Edward Saroyan,
a French-Armenian filmmaker who has recreated the famous Battle of
Van and through it hopes to tell the terrible story that his
people underwent. But it is the signature sub-plots, twists,
and plain strangeness that make this film, like Egoyan's others,
sublime to watch. There's Arsiné Khanjian as an actress in
Saroyan's movie who may or may not have killed her husband, who in
turn may or may not have been a terrorist. Then there's her
son Raffi, who is sleeping with his half-sister and growing
marijuana in a huge loft… The
most fascinating aspect of the film may well be Egoyan's foray
into the idea that historical truths are not absolute and that all
that art can do is perhaps provide a glimpse into the history of a
nation. Witness the woman who slashes a
famous Gorky painting, or the video that Raffi shoots of
now-destroyed Armenian churches in Turkey--all attempts to heal a
complex and tragic past.
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