Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

SnoopyStyle In 1915, Turkish forces attack Van and its Armenian inhabitants in eastern Turkey. Clarence Ussher is an American missionary doctor who witnesses and later writes about the destruction. Arshile Gorky is an artist who loses his family and escapes to America. Ani (Arsinée Khanjian) is a modern day professor, and an expert on Gorky and his painting of his mother. Edward Saroyan is directing a film about Van and hires Ani intending to incorporate Gorky into the story. Ani is facing trouble at home. Her son Raffi (David Alpay) is rebelling and sleeping with his step-sister Celia (Marie-Josée Croze). Celia blames Ani for the death of her father. Raffi decides to go to Turkey. When he returns, he's stopped at customs by David (Christopher Plummer). David has family problems of his own. In Saroyan's film, half-Muslim Ali (Elias Koteas) plays the cruel governor Jevdet Bey and Martin Harcourt (Bruce Greenwood) plays Ussher.Tackling the Armenian Genocide is a tricky matter. Director Atom Egoyan does it by entangling with many issues of art, history and truth. It is a very commendable effort diving deeper than a simple reenactment which the character Saroyan does in the movie. I love every scene where these issues are touched on. I do wish Raffi is played by a more compelling actor. I love Croze but her character adds an unnecessary layer. Her character is struggling with her father's suicide. That emotional conflict is too similar to Raffi's father's death from attempting to assassinate the Turkish ambassador. Raffi and Celia could easily be combined into one character. I would actually keep Croze who is the better actor of the two. With such complex emotions, the cast of characters would be better off with some minor trimming. The same goes for David's family. The movie needs a little bit of emotional trimming.

S. C. I came across the movie Ararat while doing research for a paper I was writing for school. I watched it hoping that it would give me further insight into the Armenian Genocide. I can honestly say that this movie not only enforced the research I had done, but also led me to new topics I had not yet researched myself. I strongly believe in knowing about the events in a movie before watching it. Otherwise, you can sit through an entire film and not understand the meaning or significance that it holds. For instance, if you watch a film on Gallipolli (a very important battle for the Australians in the First World War) you may not know what it means for the people who were involved (like most people who live outside of Australia). However, if you take time to do a little research before hand you can easily watch a film about it and understand its importance. That said, I believe that this applies to Ararat in the same way. If you don't take the time to research the Armenian Genocide along with other aspects of the film such as the Van Resistance, Arshile Gorky, Clarence Ussher or even Aghtamar Island, you can never fully understand this movie (or any other film about the Armenian Genocide as well). I thought this movie was the perfect mix of storyline and documentation. In my opinion, it presented the facts of the Armenian Genocide accurately and effectively, without turning into a documentary about it. It showed how it still affects the Armenians of today, even though it happened a little bit less than one hundred years ago. How there could still be such denial and hatred between the people who were involved. The fact that we know so much about the holocaust that Adolf Hitler carried out and so little about this Holocaust, that started only 18 years before Hitler came to power, is shocking and deeply upsetting. I recommend this film highly, as not only an important piece on this historical event, but also an excellent film. I must applaud Atom Egoyan for doing this event justice and bringing it to life on the screen.

Samiam3 Although there is probably some room for improvement, Ararat remains a thought provoking and intelligent piece of art filmaking from the bizarre mind of Atom Egoyan. It is regarded as a fairly controversial film, some loved it, some loathed it. Perhaps it was too closely compared to his masterworks Erotica and the Sweet Hereafter. It is a very different movie. Ararat is Egoyan's strange memorial to the Armenian massacre committed by the Turkish during WWI. Ironically, Egoyan's script features a handful of people attempting to make a feature film about that. Ararat zooms in on an art historian, who has been hired as a historical adviser for the feature. Her son has just returned from the motherland having shot some second unit footage, or so he tells the customs officer when asked what is in the containers he is carrying. Convinced that the boy is smuggling drugs, the officer takes him behind an starts questioning him. What he gets in more than a few answers from this kid. He gets a whole history of a people that to this day Turkey denies have anything to do with.One thing about Egoyan's movies is that they set challenges for the actors. While Ararat is less dimensional and creative with character development than previous films, the acting is nonetheless impressive. The narrative is a little messy, but not as the result of bad filmaking. Rather it is the result of a director's choice, trying to put some distance between the viewer and the screen. That may sound odd, Egoyan is an odd director, but one with method in his madness. See Ararat and decide for yourself.

Armand About past. About its murders. The silence is only solution. Or the words with dust taste. A crime, few stories, a people and the fear. And the gestures of present. Past like present. History as continuous struggle. "Ararat" is a testimony. And a poem. More didacticist. Too cold. Theatral and subjective. It is a manifest. It is a demonstration and lesson and accusation and page of chronicle. The life of a people like a chain. The existence of an artist as root of subtle and eternal accusation. In fact, a film about a man who believe in his memories like in a religion. For who the time has one nuances, one voice, one face. It is not an anti-Turkish film. It is not the story of Armenocide. The story of Saroyan may be of Romanians, Georgians or Jews. It is a piece of East. A story of a petrified space of Europe, for who present is part of huge past. A film as a isle. Or desert. Or evening. The silhouettes. The silence. The night. The new day.