Tweet
Tandem, Canada
May 19 2005
A woman's battle to transcend two divided cultures
Toronto actress Arsinée Khanjian unveils traditions in Sabah
By Angela Baldassarre
Arsinee Khanjian as Sabah, in the film by Ruba Nadda While her husband,
Atom Egoyan, is fending off bad press for his latest movie at the
Cannes film festival, actress Arsinee Khanjian is busy honing her
own chops by promoting Ruba Nadda's feature directorial debut, Sabah.
A Gemini and Genie Award-winning actress with strong dark and
exotic features, 47-year-old Khanjian not only has appeared in all
of Egoyan's films, but has starred in fare by some of the world's
bravest filmmakers, including Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat
and Michael Haneke.
In Sabah, Armenian-born Khanjian plays a 40-year-old single Muslim-Arab
woman who lives with her widowed mother (Um Mouhammed) in a Toronto
home. Sabah must answer to her older brother, Majid (Jeff Seymour)
who controls the family finances; but one day Sabah decides to defy
her familial duties and goes swimming to a public pool where she meets
and eventually falls in love with Stephen (Shawn Doyle), a Christian
man who is also divorced. And thus begins Sabah's battle to transcend
two divided cultures.
Tandem talked to Arsinee Khanjian in Toronto.
You look so comfortable in this role.
"It was written for me as I understood it. The first time Ruba got in
touch with me was three years ago. I received a script through Atom's
office where she knew where to find me. So she sent the script with
a letter saying 'I would love you to read this. I've written it with
you in mind and I'd love you to consider it.' When I read that first
draft, and since then it's gone through many wonderful drafts, I was
very excited about it, I thought it was a very honest piece of work.
It came from a real, very simple but sincere place. It didn't have any
sort of heavy undertones, major socio-political analyses. It was a very
true story of a particular family and of a particular woman, one that
was 40 years old. How often do you see that on a screen today? And
she was presented as 40, not 40 looking like 20 or 30. I was really
excited about the script but then I started having concerns about it."
What kind of concerns?
"Maybe that's when I kinda politicized the premise. I started wondering
if I was the right person to play it, although I'm completely familiar
with the environment. I come from the Middle East, I grew up in
the Middle East. I was 17 when I left, so I had enough conscious
understanding of what Arabic culture is about, Middle Eastern culture
is about. However, because I am from Armenian background therefore
there are still major differences in terms of religion, Armenians being
Christian and here we were dealing with a family with Muslim values. I
felt that maybe I wasn't the right person to play the part given the
climate of today in terms of how the west is trying to figure out
what Islam is about. I had many discussions with Ruba wondering if
she has thought about that, if I were later to be in this situation
where I would have to talk about the film and the character and that
family and that situation. And she was incredibly at ease about it
saying that 'what you read in this script is my intense relationship
with my own culture and I think you're a good voice for it.'
Why is Sabah 40?
"I asked Ruba 'why is she 40? You're a young woman?' She came up with
the most wonderful answer, saying probably because for a 40-year old
it's more difficult to break away from your traditions especially
if those traditions have become the purpose of your life. And to
question yourself and be able to entitle yourself with those rights
which are absolutely basic individual rights, it makes it much more
interesting premise. That really made me trust the journey of the
character. From there on it was a particular journey because I had
never found myself in that situation so I didn't have any first-hand
pain of being completely isolated in terms of my family functions. It
was very important for me to be truthful without making her this kind
of strange character from being completely inexistent to suddenly
breaking through. It was very important for me to give her a journey,
and each step of the journey was not necessarily a confrontation with
the outside world but with the world that she had taken on in terms
of her personality, her identity. We talked a lot with Ruba about
that. I felt that the only way that I could understand her was in
terms of her struggle to come out from her own limitations as opposed
to one that has been imposed on her."
--Boundary_(ID_iJ/ceN2m7D/kdLRuwwGCYw)--
May 19 2005
A woman's battle to transcend two divided cultures
Toronto actress Arsinée Khanjian unveils traditions in Sabah
By Angela Baldassarre
Arsinee Khanjian as Sabah, in the film by Ruba Nadda While her husband,
Atom Egoyan, is fending off bad press for his latest movie at the
Cannes film festival, actress Arsinee Khanjian is busy honing her
own chops by promoting Ruba Nadda's feature directorial debut, Sabah.
A Gemini and Genie Award-winning actress with strong dark and
exotic features, 47-year-old Khanjian not only has appeared in all
of Egoyan's films, but has starred in fare by some of the world's
bravest filmmakers, including Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat
and Michael Haneke.
In Sabah, Armenian-born Khanjian plays a 40-year-old single Muslim-Arab
woman who lives with her widowed mother (Um Mouhammed) in a Toronto
home. Sabah must answer to her older brother, Majid (Jeff Seymour)
who controls the family finances; but one day Sabah decides to defy
her familial duties and goes swimming to a public pool where she meets
and eventually falls in love with Stephen (Shawn Doyle), a Christian
man who is also divorced. And thus begins Sabah's battle to transcend
two divided cultures.
Tandem talked to Arsinee Khanjian in Toronto.
You look so comfortable in this role.
"It was written for me as I understood it. The first time Ruba got in
touch with me was three years ago. I received a script through Atom's
office where she knew where to find me. So she sent the script with
a letter saying 'I would love you to read this. I've written it with
you in mind and I'd love you to consider it.' When I read that first
draft, and since then it's gone through many wonderful drafts, I was
very excited about it, I thought it was a very honest piece of work.
It came from a real, very simple but sincere place. It didn't have any
sort of heavy undertones, major socio-political analyses. It was a very
true story of a particular family and of a particular woman, one that
was 40 years old. How often do you see that on a screen today? And
she was presented as 40, not 40 looking like 20 or 30. I was really
excited about the script but then I started having concerns about it."
What kind of concerns?
"Maybe that's when I kinda politicized the premise. I started wondering
if I was the right person to play it, although I'm completely familiar
with the environment. I come from the Middle East, I grew up in
the Middle East. I was 17 when I left, so I had enough conscious
understanding of what Arabic culture is about, Middle Eastern culture
is about. However, because I am from Armenian background therefore
there are still major differences in terms of religion, Armenians being
Christian and here we were dealing with a family with Muslim values. I
felt that maybe I wasn't the right person to play the part given the
climate of today in terms of how the west is trying to figure out
what Islam is about. I had many discussions with Ruba wondering if
she has thought about that, if I were later to be in this situation
where I would have to talk about the film and the character and that
family and that situation. And she was incredibly at ease about it
saying that 'what you read in this script is my intense relationship
with my own culture and I think you're a good voice for it.'
Why is Sabah 40?
"I asked Ruba 'why is she 40? You're a young woman?' She came up with
the most wonderful answer, saying probably because for a 40-year old
it's more difficult to break away from your traditions especially
if those traditions have become the purpose of your life. And to
question yourself and be able to entitle yourself with those rights
which are absolutely basic individual rights, it makes it much more
interesting premise. That really made me trust the journey of the
character. From there on it was a particular journey because I had
never found myself in that situation so I didn't have any first-hand
pain of being completely isolated in terms of my family functions. It
was very important for me to be truthful without making her this kind
of strange character from being completely inexistent to suddenly
breaking through. It was very important for me to give her a journey,
and each step of the journey was not necessarily a confrontation with
the outside world but with the world that she had taken on in terms
of her personality, her identity. We talked a lot with Ruba about
that. I felt that the only way that I could understand her was in
terms of her struggle to come out from her own limitations as opposed
to one that has been imposed on her."
--Boundary_(ID_iJ/ceN2m7D/kdLRuwwGCYw)--