Simply A Masterpiece

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

In spite of a lukewarm critical response, the fact that Ararat won Best Motion Picture at the Genie Awards and that it would be a definite personal film to Atom Egoyan sounds promising. He viewed his better films The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and Remember (2015) as having allusions to the Armenian Genocide, which impacted his family; Ararat is meant to deal with the often neglected subject head-on, or so you'd think. Rather, it deals with a crew in Toronto that makes a film about the genocide. Seeing snippets of their work, I wish Egoyan had made some version of that instead.I rarely use this criticism of film, but Ararat is excessively preachy, much of it coming from David Alpay and Bruce Greenwood, who spout out facts at length, often without a lot of emotion, and often to people who wouldn't be much interested. A lot of this is entirely irrelevant a customs official like Plummer's character, no matter how the film attempts to spin this. When Alpay's character quotes Hitler about no one remembering the Armenians, Elias Koteas' character, who'd earlier questioned if the account went exactly as it is said to, and who notes this matter is behind him and his colleagues born in Canada, echoes the Nazi dictator's sentiment in a deeply sinister voice. He has gone from mild skepticism to all-out Hitler, in Egoyan's shameless breach of Godwin's law.Much of this smacks as false. When Greenwood's character, an actor, is advised to read a book that inspired the film, the character replies he has read the book, along with every single thing ever written about the artist it's about, the Armenian Genocide, and the Armenian people in general, and the character isn't even said to be Armenian. Is this the kind of in-depth expertise Egoyan finds in his actors on a regular basis? Do actors who've read every book ever written about the broadest of subjects frequently line up at his auditions, and he gets his pick? I'm sure every other director envies him.Films about films are too common. Occasionally, you get a really great one that makes it okay, such as Sunset Blvd. Most of the time, it's just narcissistic, and in this case, it definitely gets in the way of the awareness Egoyan was hoping to create.

I have seen directors who have a hard time leaving things out of their films; John Sayles comes to mind. Egoyan would have made a great picture if he could just have left the Gorky material out of the final script: it just doesn't fit, and slows down the pace considerably. Otherwise, the film-within-a-film idea works fine (as it did for Truffaut in Day For Night) and the actors do a good job. Celia's character is enigmatic at first, her behaviour around Ani very erratic, but as we get to hear more about her past the pieces fall into place. Raffi is an appealing hero--his blend of idealism for his Armenian heritage, longing for his dead father and wish to get out from under his mother's petticoats was well brought out. Christopher Plummer as David the customs agent was the best player: his fifty years of professional experience in acting served him well here. He is so sly, thoughtful and unexpectedly compassionate that I was bowled over.Every year on or around April 24, there is a demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy by members of the Armenian diaspora. I live on that street and have heard the speeches and response from the crowd many times. This film will help the message get out.

I am a student from Turkey, who does admit the Armenian Genocide. I am accused of being a self-hater in my country. I am even accused of betraying my own country, because I'm against Turkey's governmental policy. According to this I started watching this movie with a prejudgement. I was sure I would like the movie. But things didn't go that way. There's a movie shot by Turkish which tells about 1914, just before the deportation and execution of Armenians started. I watched it and hated it. It is called "120". I hated it because it showed Armenians as traitors to the Ottoman Empire. There were also "good" Armenians but because of the atmosphere it seemed very weird that they are like that. It was like "Armenians are evil by nature but there are some odd exceptions" I voted that movie 1/10. Now I feel like it was unfair. Now I have to vote "Ararat" under that. Because "Ararat" doesn't even contain a slightly good Turkish character. However we know that there are many Turkish villagers who helped their Armenian neighbours during the Genocide by hiding them. There are also many people in Turkey who do not believe what their government tell them and struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. There's a campaign Turkish people have started to collect signatures, which apologizes to Armenians because of what happened. The campaign has already collected 28.000 signatures. Atom Egoyan strictly ignores every humanistic behaviour from the Turkish. This leads to hatred and hostility. I believe if we show this movie to an Armenian/Turkish nationalist, it would increase its hatred against Turkish/Armenian. An artist must be more responsible. Because what he/she creates appeals to many and their reaction to that may be crucial. This movie is very subjective and there's a high risk that it may trigger hatred and hostility. I, as a person from Turkey who denies to call himself Turkish because of his repulsion against nationalism, am offended.

I don't have a dog in the historic fight here, but expected to learn something I didn't know from the film. As a history buff, I had high hopes of insight into the historic context of the time, the actions taken by the two sides, how they viewed the situation, and/or why they did what they did.Instead, the opportunity was squandered on a long, drawn out, absolutely boring melodrama involving some obscure family conflict, a gratuitous if titillating sex scene, some bizarre injection of homosexuality and atheism creating stress in an aging character with nothing at all to do with the history, and a lot of drippy and pointless personal drama. The only history to be seen consisted of one dimensional Turks and Armenians shooting each other, especially the former shooting and raping civilians of the latter.The actual historical actors were like cartoon characters. One might, for example, have liked to know that the American doctor was doing in the middle of Turkey. Or why the Turk commander felt he needed to do what he did. Instead, the historic conflict is treated with all the depth of a Road Runner cartoon, while the main focus is on some kid and his girlfriend going through an emotional life crisis. Either, done well, might have been interesting. Both mashed together and done poorly are like a cherry pie with asparagus filling. Boring, unenlightening, and patched together, it was as if someone had taken some cheap footage of war from a century ago and randomly spliced in parts of various soap operas. What a waste of an opportunity.This movie just sucked. I don't usually express my opinion that way, but frankly it just sucked. I can understand why either side with a political axe to grind might feel compelled to love or hate the film, but having none I found it almost unwatchably boring.