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CalendarRating:
Release Date: 26 June, 2001 Retail Price: $29.99 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $3.00! Cast: |
Calendar Reviews
elusive and evocative
As usual with this marvelous director, you will most likely not understand this film until you are deeply into it, and I find Egoyan's director's commentary to be invaluable.
This film is nominally about a photographer (Atom Egoyan) and his wife (Egoyan's real-life spouse, Arsinee Khanjian), who travel to Armenia to photograph churches for a calendar, the wife acting as translator to the Armenian guide (Ashot Adamian). During this process, the wife and guide fall in love, right under the uncomprehending photographer's nose. Back home after she has remained in Armenia, the photographer watches his film of the trip to try and discover when the two fell in love. This description is much too linear for an Egoyan film. It will reveal itself to you in layers, as do all his works. You will constantly be feeling little ah-ha! moments of understanding, which is the element I really enjoy about this director. He is like Hal Hartley with a point.
One reviewer feels that the film is too autobiographical, but in his commentary Egoyan laughs about this assumption being made by his friends and others when it previewed, their assumption reinforced by Arsinee's absence -- but it turns out she was at home, unable to travel due to pregnancy -- in what was a happy time for the couple. I think that speaks to how capable this director is at pulling viewers into his fiction.
Egoyan reveals that he had not intended to play the photographer, but for technical reasons had to. He's not an actor and knows it, but I think he did a fine job. The story is intimate, but issues of detachment and isolation resound here, as in his other works.
This film may be too quiet for non-indie film lovers, but for Egoyan fans or those who are fascinated by people, it will be a treasure that will stay with you a while.
DVD extras include the commentary track, Egoyan's biography/filmography, stills, and two interviews with the director -- one 7-1/2 minutes, the other 52 minutes. The film can be heard in English (with English subtitles for the Armenian), and subtitles are available in English or French.
Love Is Stronger Than Death-Song of Solomon 8:6
I had hoped I would learn more about Armenian church history in the earliest days of christianity. I like Atom Egoyan's films, they are very distinctive compared to American films, always thought provoking. I found this one to be somewhat disturbing, yet it is good. And though historical details are lacking, Armenia's history has been a disruptive one at that, witnessed by the many ruins of churches which dot this ancient pastoral countryside and by the fractured familial relationships that result from endless unrest. Indeed, the films of the churches in Armenia was filmed on site in 10 days with an escort of soldiers and filmed with home video calibre equipment in 1992 or so. There are 13 characters in the film, none with names. The three principal characters are Egoyan and his wife, in real life, Arsinee Khanjian, and the interpreter who comes between them breaking up their marriage, which painfully he must witness while filming, documenting the event forever, at least for the length of the movie. Love is such an intense emotion, 'stronger than death', which Egoyan's character must grapple with the loss of for an entire year as he turns each page of the calendar remembering the events and conversations at those moments. Attempting to forget his wife, he entertains 10 "guests", girlfriends, at his home in Toronto, yet is somehow constantly reminded of his separation and loss. It reminded me of Groundhog Day, yet in the end, Egoyan doesn't get the girl like Bill Murray does. The unidentified foster child of Egoyan in this film, in addition to Egoyan's separation from his wife, is reminiscent of Gabriel Bagradian's family in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, in that they are split apart as a family. I gave the movie four stars just because I found the story too emotionally intense for me. It was very frustrating to see Egoyan suffer as he did, thinking why doesn't he quit tormenting himself, yet there had been a strong bond between he and his wife and through his work. I think this movie has a lot to say about the power of image in evoking powerful human emotions. We are very influenced by what we choose to see and hear, yet, in Egoyan's case, it seems he is somehow hostage to this situation; he has no free will to forget his betrayal until the last day of the year and the last phone call from his wife.
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