In the lead up to the 7th Canadian Film Festival in Australia (August 2012), join us as we countdown the Top 100 Canadian Films of the past 30 years. We'll be posting one film a day leading up to Canada Day on July 1st 2012. Do you agree with our team favourites? Let us know your thoughts!
Atom Egoyan delves into his Armenian heritage for Ararat, a complex and multilayered film that casts light upon the tragedy of the Armenian genocide in the First World War.
To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the massacre of one million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman troops in 1915. Egoyan’s film explores both the reality of this tragedy, and its legacy for modern-day Armenian expatriates and their search for identity.
20 year-old Armenian Canadian Raffi (David Alpay) is working for director Edward Saroyan (Charles Aznavour) on his new movie, a depiction of the Armenian genocide centred on the story of celebrated Abstract Expressionist painter Gorky, who fled the genocide in Armenia as a child and lost his family in the process.
Raffi’s mother is an art history professor specialising in Gorky, and his father is dead, killed in an assassination attempt on a Turkish politician. Adding another layer of complexity to this dark family history, Raffi is also sleeping with his step-sister Celia, who is convinced that Raffi’s mother was involved in her father’s death.
As Raffi works on Saroyan’s film, the scenes come to life and we’re transported back to 1915, to experience Gorky’s escape from the Siege of Van first hand, in scenes that are both affecting and richly coloured and stylised to look like an Expressionist painting.
Back in the modern day, Raffi is returning to Canada with tins of background footage shot in Turkey when he’s detained by a customs official (Christopher Plummer) who suspects him of smuggling drugs.
Between these multiple plot lines the story of Raffi’s family, and Gorky’s tragedy, unfold with a lingering power that will leave you with a thirst to learn more about the history of the Armenian people.
- Nick Jarvis
“Hands down the year's most thought-provoking film” Stephen Holden - New York Times
To see the other films in the countdown so far, click here.