Synopsis
Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.
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Cast
- Simon AbkarianArshile Gorky
- Charles AznavourEdward Saroyan
- Christopher PlummerDavid
- Arsinée KhanjianAni
- David AlpayRaffi
- Marie-Josée CrozeCelia
- Elias KoteasAli / Jevdet Bay
- Brent CarverPhilip
- Max MorrowTony
- Christie MacFadyenJanet
Recommendations
- 83
Entertainment Weekly
As ever, Egoyan assembles a devoted repertory cast, including Christopher Plummer. - 80
Chicago Reader
Expresses with uncommon power the highly relevant issue of public indifference to genocide, which is especially well dramatized by a scene with Elias Koteas as an actor playing a Turk. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
This is a heartfelt piece, and while passion alone can't carry a movie, it sure helps. Ararat is uneven because Egoyan couldn't tell it smoothly. - 75
Chicago Tribune
This toweringly ambitious picture confronts a brilliant director, Atom Egoyan, with a major historical event and a profound theme. - 70
Dallas Observer
The resulting project matters much and should be seen, but how much it'll be FELT depends on your specific level of patience for a director who presumes audience comprehension to be at about a fourth-grade level (at least he's a shoo-in for Hollywood). - 70
Los Angeles Times
Egoyan's oblique, layered attack ultimately pays off, evoking a strong emotional connection between past and present, the historical and the personal, in a flowing, cinematic manner in collaboration with his frequent cameraman, Paul Sarossy. The film makes use of an intoxicating array of Armenian music. - 63
USA Today
Has its moments -- and almost as many subplots. - 60
The A.V. Club
Though typically engaging, Ararat occasionally suffers from what's previously been a virtue in Egoyan's filmmaking. His distancing techniques, rather than sharpening his ability to deal with a subject that lends itself to high emotion -- sometimes just seem distancing.
