Copy of Module 10-2

.pdf

School

Toronto Metropolitan University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

128

Subject

Arts Humanities

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by AgentPigeonMaster1011

Storylines Ararat Must post first. Egoyan’s film Ararat contains multiple interlocking storylines. Why do you think Egoyan decided to tell this story through so many different perspectives and timelines? Did you find any of the storylines pointless? Or are they all meaningful in one way or another? You must start a thread before you can read and reply to other threads Egoyan told his story using a complicated narrative structure in an attempt to convey the dense and complex structure of the narrative itself. The history of the Armenian Genocide has consistently been a difficult issue to discuss – especially in this type of movie format. Koksal notes that Egoyan attempts to not only educate his audience on the history between the Armenian and the Turks but rather “illustrate the result of the ongoing dominant discourse on the subject, which is a denialist one.” On a surface level, the multiple storylines may seem purposeless and difficult to follow, but the complex order of them, themselves, are intended to convey that this is not a simple issue. None of the storylines within the film are pointless because, apparent are not, they all communicate a suffering. By this I mean that, all the characters either suffer from some sort of denial or live in denial themselves. Maintaining this theme of denial throughout the film is important as it exposes the kind of denial that exists among Turkish people. Most significantly, refusing to face the past or completely rejecting the opportunity to hear each other out is the central cause of this debate and Egoyan attempts to bring this to light. The film Ararat was initially very confusing to me because of the interlocking storylines, but upon further analyzation, I realized the brilliant symbolism Egoyan portrayed. Each storyline is essential to the telling of the story. It connects the intergenerational trauma that

normally goes misunderstood. I personally felt the complexity of the movie helped me to understand the internal conﬂict the descendants of Armenians feel. As Köksal said in his article “it is no coincidence, that Ani, as well as others in the film, continually reproduce what they suffer from.” In the complexity of this movie, I recognized the pain caused from intergenerational trauma once not healed, will cause turmoil all around. David, the customs officer I recognized as western empathy on Raffi who represented Armenian civilization. Moments after I completed watching this film I was awestruck as to why David having found heroin and still allowed Raffi to go free, was it because of his own internal conﬂict and guilt? The story line of Arshile Gorky was presented as the Armenian who escaped to rise above, only to fall on his own past pain and trauma. The sympathizing of Ali, who plays Jevdet Bay with the Turkish militants is modern-day Turkey ignoring the Armenian genocide and wanting it erased from their history. All these details come together to show a big picture. I admire Egoyan’s brilliance to portray the pain, loss and Turkish nationalism with such an objective view. As Daldal mentions, “Like [his] previous films, Ararat has a very complex script. It tells many stories that cross-cut each other.” (Daldal, 2007). Egoyan likely chooses this style to create more depth in the storylines and to show a sense of “it's a small world”. I believe that the use of the numerous overlapping storylines gave an interesting twist on the regular Hollywood styles but I also felt that it deviated away from the main theme of the film, the Armenian Genocide. While it made for an interesting story, I personally felt the time used for characters such as Celia, as well as David’s family background took away from the story about the genocide and could have been replaced to give more background on the events. It wasn’t really until the very end, in the scenes of the film at the premiere that there was a lot more context given to the story being told. The story of Gorky was told throughout the film in the film, as well as the actual film itself but there was very little background given for that story to be set. There also seemed to be no real resolution with the two storylines which is unfortunate considering how much could have been told about the Armenian people

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version