Aurora’s Sunrise: Bearing Witness to the Armenian Genocide

Imagine if all prints of Hotel Rwanda or Schindler’s List disappeared a few years after they premiered. That is basically what happened to Auction of Souls, a widely seen 1919 silent film about the Armenian Genocide, starring Aurora Mardiganian, a genocide survivor, portraying herself. Sadly, Auction of Souls is still considered a “lost film,” but some rediscovered fragments have been incorporated into Inna Sahakyan’s animated “documentary,” Aurora’s Sunrise, which opens today in New York.

A friendly Kurdish shepherd warned Mardiganian’s father the Ottoman regime was rounding-up ethnic Armenians, but he simply could not envision the horrors that were coming. Some of the men were drafted into military service, but the rest of the Armenian enclaves were forcibly expelled in brutal death marches. After witnessing the deaths of her mother and sisters, Mardiganian was several times sold into sexual slavery (sometimes referred to with inappropriate romanticism as harems). Yet, she kept escaping, hoping to reunite with her surviving family.

Eventually, an uncle with the Armenian resistance arranged Mardiganian’s passage to America. Despite her youth, she became a spokesperson for the Armenian cause, even reliving the horrors she endured in Auction of Souls, the movie adaptation of her serialized biography.

It is important to remember Mardiganian and the roadshow screenings of Auction of Souls raised over $116 million dollars for Armenian orphan relief, which when accounting for inflation amounts to over $1.7 billion in current dollars. There was widespread outrage across America regarding the Armenian genocide, which is why the Roosevelt administration’s stony silence on the Holocaust is so hard to accept.

Regardless, Aurora’s Sunrise bills itself as documentary, but the story unfolds like a narrative film. From time to time, Sahakyan includes archival interview footage with the late Mardiganian, but the film plays out like an epic historical. Mardiganian’s many escapes might even have a “Perils of Pauline” vibe were it not for the dire circumstances and tragic context in which they take place.

Tribeca ’17: Intent to Destroy

The Armenian Genocide did not suddenly happen. The Ottoman Empire orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Hamidian Massacres of 1894-1896. Carried out without the obscuring benefit of the fog of war, it was essentially an early rehearsal for the genocide conducted by the Young Turks government in 1915. For years, the Turkish government pressured Hollywood to conform to their redacted view of history, but thanks to the financial support of Kirk Kerkorian, Terry George’s The Promise was produced and recently released nationwide. Joe Berlinger documents the behind-the-scenes making of The Promise as well as the ugly business of genocide denial in Intent to Destroy, which screens during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.

You will hear Spanish on the set, because Spain was one of the locations selected as a good architectural and topographical double for Turkey, which was automatically considered off limits for shooting, for obvious reasons. George was a logical choice to helm The Promise, because he had previously addressed genocide in the Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda. He finally succeeded where others caved-in. Pointedly, Berlinger gives viewers a detailed blow-by-blow of the campaign launched against MGM’s canceled adaptation of Franz Werfel’s Fort Days of Musa Dagh, one of the bestselling novels in translation of the 1930s.

Intent has been uncharitably likened to a making-of DVD extra for The Promise, but that is not entirely fair. Berlinger does indeed chronicle the production of the film, starting with an early public table read, featuring Eric Bogosian and Anna George. However, the doc also incorporates a great deal of historical and cultural context. Indeed, context is exactly what Turkish nationalists and other genocide deniers do not want viewers to have.

Perhaps most enlightening are the sequences that expose the assassination of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist who directly addressed the Genocide, as well as the lackadaisical prosecution of his murderer. In rather eye-opening segments, Berlinger also lets prominent Genocide Obfuscators (since the object to the term “denier”) a chance to make their case. Arguably, M. Hakan Yavuz takes the cake for most risible argument, suggesting it was Turkish Muslims who suffered most from WWI and its aftermath, because they were so demoralized by the loss of the empire.

Although neither is a masterpiece, The Promise is a pretty good film and Intent to Destroy is a pretty good documentary. While Terry George was the perfect director to helm Promise, Berlinger’s aversion to transparency and his legal battle to keep outtakes from Crude out of the public eye will make him an easy target for deniers looking to discredit Intent. That is a shame, because there could be a narrow window of opportunity for the U.S. government to finally officially recognize the Armenian Genocide after decades of deferring Ankara for geopolitical reasons. Given Erdogan’s continued tilt towards Iran and his recent blatant power grab, would it really be so bad if American reversed course? It would certainly cost him serious face.

Regardless, Intent is definitely more than EPK stuff for The Promise. There is quite a bit of fascinating history and timely exposures of human rights violations. Recommended for general audiences, Intent to Destroy screens again this afternoon (4/29) at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival—and also today and this coming Friday (5/5) at Hot Docs up north.

The Promise: Love Survives Genocide

A $100 million budget is almost unheard of for an independent film, but the late billionaire philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian wanted to make a statement. In the past, Turkish Islamist deniers of the Armenian Genocide have been remarkably successful censoring Hollywood and other prospective producers of films depicting the Ottoman-orchestrated mass murder of ethnic Armenia Christians, but they couldn’t silence Kerkorian, who entirely financed the production of Terry George’s The Promise (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Promise releases in theaters a mere six weeks after Joseph Ruben’s irredeemably shameful The Ottoman Lieutenant, a Turkish-produced attempt to obscure and trivialize the Armenian Genocide, but it should generate considerably more interest due to it’s A-list cast (Christian Bale vs. Josh Hartnett) and infinitely superior intentions. As the film opens, ambitious young apothecary Mikael Pogosian has agreed to marry the earnest Maral after first using her dowry to attend medical school in Constantinople. It is not love, at least not on his part, but he recognizes her goodness and so assumes he will grow to love her over time.

Yet, as soon as he sets foot in the fashionable home of his father’s wealthy merchant cousin, Pogosian falls head over heels with the children’s music tutor Ana Khesarian. She too is already in a problematic but committed relationship with crusading American journalist Chris Myers, so both try to deny their burgeoning attraction. However, as anti-Armenian violence erupts throughout the Sick Man of Europe, Pogosian and Khesarian are thrown together in ways that breaks down their resolve.

Inevitably separated from Khesarian, Pogosian finds himself detailed to a work brigade that will consigned to a mass grave once they finish the road they are toiling on. The doctor-in-training will escape the fate assigned to him, but he will witness far more horrors as he makes his way through the formerly Armenian provinces, ultimately arriving at the fateful Musa Dagh.

The Promise is not anti-Muslim. Indeed, it takes great pains to introduce Emre Ogan, Pogosian’s Muslim colleague at medical school, who consistently tries to shield his friend from anti-Armenian discrimination and persecution. Of course, the fun-loving Ogan will not be any Islamist’s idea of a Muslim, but it makes him all the more sympathetic to rational viewers.

Frankly, we have yet to see the defining, hearts-and-minds changing film on the Armenian Genocide, but at least in the case of The Promise, it was not for a lack of trying. Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon develop decent Yuri-and-Lara chemistry as Pogosian and Khesarian. Bale is terrific as the heroic but deeply flawed Myers. However, the great Shohreh Aghdashloo and Angela Sarafyan (technically the only true Armenian cast-member) really pack an emotional wallop as Pogosian’s tough but loving mother Marta and his loyal intended Maral, respectively.

In fact, there are dozens small but accomplished supporting turns distributed throughout The Promise, including Rade Serbedzija as the steely mayor leading the resistance at Musa Dagh and Marwan Kenzari as the likable but ultimately tragic Ogan. Plus, James Cromwell memorably gives the Ottoman authorities a stinging moral rebuke as American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr.

The Promise is a big, sweeping film, but it suffers from its formulaic predictableness. George and co-screenwriter Robin Swicord were clearly looking towards David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago as a model, but there is no analog for Sir Alec Guinness’s wild card performance as Lt. Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago. No matter how many times we watch Zhivago, we still do not quite know what to make of him, whereas we can quickly pigeonhole every character in The Promise.

Still, there is quite a bit to recommend George’s film. The war scenes are impressively brutal and viewers can viscerally feel the resulting emotional devastation experienced by the Armenian community. It certainly does not deserve the one-star reviews tens of thousands of Genocide deniers have robotically posted on imdb, despite the film only having screened publicly a handful of times at the Toronto Film Festival. Recommended for general audiences, The Promise opens this Friday (4/21) in New York, at the AMC Empire and Loews Lincoln Square.

The Cut: Surviving the Armenian Genocide

If you want to generate an avalanche of email, some of which speculating on the nature of your parentage, than merely point out somewhere online that the Muslim Ottoman Empire essentially invented genocide in 1915. No serious historian disputes the Armenian Genocide, but the denial reaches levels well past the absurd, approaching outright lunacy. Therefore it is somewhat encouraging to see hardcore leftist Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin seriously address the subject. His reference point is more The Searchers than Schindler’s List, but there is no denying the enormity of the events of 1915 in Akin’s The Cut (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

In his Armenian enclave bordering Syria, Nazaret Manoogian can tell an ill wind is blowing from Constantinople, but he hopes the worst of it will be the impressment and slave labor endured by the village’s able-bodied men. Alas, true horrors await when they finally finish the highway for the military. The entire work party is then massacred by a group of convicts specifically liberated for such duties. However, Mehmet the thief has no stomach for mass murder. At risk of death he slices Manoogian’s throat, but only cuts deep enough to sever his vocal chords, rather than a major artery.

The resuscitated Armenian and Mehmet soon fall in with an apolitical group of Turkish deserters, but Manoogian subsequently lights out on his own after hearing survivors have congregated in Ras-al-Ayn, essentially to wait for death. From there, Manoogian will follow an epic trail that leads through Syria, Lebanon, Cuba, Florida, Minnesota, and North Dakota, in search of his surviving twin daughters, Lucinee and Arsinee.

Akin deserves credit for fully facing up to the Armenian Genocide in the Ras-al-Ayn sequences, as well as the brutal mass murder of his fellow villagers, but it clearly makes him uncomfortable. Arguably, the film’s emotional power peaks in the Ras-al-Ayn dying fields. For the next two acts, Akins seems to be desperately searching for “righteous” Muslims to protect Manoogian and thuggish Americans to torment him as he pursues his quest.

Nevertheless, Akin absorbed plenty of the right lessons from John Ford. The vistas do indeed sweep. Alexander Hacke’s muted electronic soundtrack is also quite effective, creating an appropriately otherworldly vibe. Truly, there are times when Manoogian might as well be on Mars. However, the narrative’s Homeric episodic nature is inevitably uneven. Some scenes just work better than others.

Still, Tahar Rahim nicely anchors the film with necessarily quiet power. He is acutely expressive without ever indulging in exaggeration or Streep-like excess. Once again, the Cecil B. DeMille-worthy supporting cast is a decided mixed bag, with Bartu Kucukcaglayan and Kevork Malikyan earning notice as Mehmet and the Cuban barber who befriends Manoogian, respectively.

When Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” he did so specifically in response to the systematic Ottoman massacre of Armenians. Frankly, the denial is becoming toxic for the deniers, so if someone with Akin’s ideological standing acknowledges the historical record, it might just help dilute some of the vitriol. The Cut is not perfect but it towers above his unsoulful Soul Kitchen. Recommended on balance for those interested in the Armenian Genocide (a tragedy scarcer than albino elephants in cinema), The Cut opens this Friday (9/18) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

1915: Haunted by the Past

Through his studies of the Ottoman Turks’ systematic massacre of Armenians, Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide. Yet, Turkey refuses to acknowledge the genocide as such, insisting instead it was merely a bit of clumsy rough-housing. This might sound like a purely academic question at this point, but it surely has very real world significance to Turkey’s Kurdish population, especially as the government becomes increasingly Islamist and more closely aligned with Iran. Clearly, the lack of historical closure deeply troubles the Armenian protagonist of Garin Hovannisian & Alec Mouhibian’s 1915 (trailer here), which opens this Friday in greater Los Angeles and next Wednesday in New York.

Simon Mamoulian once directed a series of popular ethnic European comedies at the iconic Los Angeles Theatre, but this will be his first production in seven years. It has a limited run of one night only, yet it has inflamed the community. Turks are outraged by the play for forthrightly depicting the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, whereas many Armenians are troubled by its Sophie’s Choice-like climax. It seems like just about everyone is protesting outside, but the stakes are even higher inside the theater.

Mamoulain’s wife Angela is playing the character unambiguously inspired by his grandmother and it is taking a lot out of her. The director seems to be able to transport her back in time to 1915 through a form of Svengali-like mesmerism. The rash of suspicious accidents do not help much either. However, we slowly start to realize Mamoulain’s play has two levels. Obviously, he wishes to speak for the estimated 1.5 million victims of the Genocide, but the play also has hidden personal meanings for him and Angela.

It is hard to imagine an independent film that is more ambitious structurally and thematically than 1915. As a result, it is impossible to judge Hovannisian & Mouhibian harshly when they lose control of their narrative. This is arguably a case where a little less would have been a little more. In particular, there is potential nemesis character introduced midway through, but his role is never cogently explained and he is so quickly dispensed, he really only serves as a baffling distraction from the serious issues at hand.

On the other hand, the filmmakers made truly inspired castings choices, starting first and foremost with French Armenian actor Simon Abkarian (Gett, Army of Crime, Wedding Song, etc.) as Mamoulain. He has a commanding presence, yet he vividly conveys how tormented his character is by personal and historical tragedies from the past. Likewise, Twilight franchise alumnus Angela Sarafyan truly looks like she was transported from 1915 into the Los Angeles Theatre. Sam Page also shows some range when the audience least expects it as James, the celebrity outsider.

It is kind of impressive how much Hovannisian & Mouhibian try to say in 1915. It does completely work, but they swing for the fences—and arguably do not come up so embarrassingly short. In fact, it is rather fascinating to watch where the film goes. They also convincingly make their central motivating point. When incidents of great historical enormity are covered-up they fester and metastasize in the national psyche. Sort of worth seeing as a noble failure with no obvious prior analog, 1915 opens this Friday (4/17) at the Laemmle Music Hall 3, Town Center 5, and Playhouse 7, as well as next Wednesday (4/22) at the Quad Cinema in New York.