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Aug 31 2014
Review: Fatih Akin's well-intended 'The Cut' does a disservice to a
historical tragedy
Tahar Rahim is unfortunately restricted to a wordless performance throughout
By Catherine Bray
VENICE -- There's a piece of slang used on the website TV Tropes that
regrettably applies to much of "The Cut." That word is "narm." Narm is
defined as a moment that is supposed to be serious or tear-jerking,
but due to poor execution becomes unintentionally funny. "The Cut" is
unfortunately the narmiest drama I've seen at Venice.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that's
certainly true of Fatih Akin's incredibly earnest and well-meaning
attempt to engage with the build-up, execution and fallout of the
Armenian Genocide carried out by the Ottoman authorities in the 1910s.
Obviously this is a huge and serious subject worthy of cinematic
treatment at the highest level -- which is regrettably not what Akin
delivers. Between 1 million and 1.5 million people are thought to have
been killed on death marches through the Syrian desert, during which
they were beaten, raped and murdered. Unfortunately, you don't really
get any impression of the massive scale of all this from "The Cut" --
its canvas is limited to the point that you could get the impression
that the persecution and massacres affected maybe a couple of thousand
people.
There isn't a sense in the film of this tragedy as a systematic,
organized atrocity affecting millions, which led to the coining of the
term genocide and influenced the Nazis (a specific quote allegedly
from Hitler -- "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of
the Armenians?" -- is contentious, but there is far less doubt that he
was influenced by these crimes). This matters; it does a disservice to
those killed to minimize their story, however unintentionally, and I
think it is unintentional -- a question of badly fluffed storytelling.
The reason for the detrimental lack of scale is possibly partly due to
budgetary issues, but mainly due to the creative decision to focus on
one man's story. There are certainly ways to pick out a single person
caught up in a large scale tragedy and use their story to personalize
the wider event. But the focus here on Tahar Rahim's blacksmith
Nazaret Manoogian is so narrow that almost everything else is
excluded.
When we meet Nazaret in 1915 in Mardin, he's a jolly fellow, proud of
his beautiful wife and twin daughters. The twins hand him a scarf
they've embroidered for him. You pretty much know instantly that the
scarf is going to be a symbol to cling onto when all else is lost, and
so it proves. Rumors are flying around the village that war is coming.
"Horrible carnage, many people dying," reports the twin's
schoolteacher ruefully. The actor's delivery of this line marked the
first point at which I shifted in my seat, no longer sure I was in
safe hands. And yes, the line is in English.
For some bizarre reason, the film is mostly English language spoken in
Armenian accents; a strange choice for a first English language
feature from Akin. There are occasional detours into subtitled
Turkish, which makes things even more confusing -- if you're going to
have some people who wouldn't have spoken English speak in English,
why not have the other people who wouldn't have spoken in English
speak in English? My best guess is it's an attempt at Othering the
Turkish for an English speaking audience -- we're on the side of the
Armenians -- but it's very jarring. It also throws up confusing
questions about Nazaret's understanding of actual English speakers
when the story eventually takes him to America.
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/review-fatih-akins-well-intended-the-cut-does-a-disservice-to-a-historical-tragedy
Aug 31 2014
Review: Fatih Akin's well-intended 'The Cut' does a disservice to a
historical tragedy
Tahar Rahim is unfortunately restricted to a wordless performance throughout
By Catherine Bray
VENICE -- There's a piece of slang used on the website TV Tropes that
regrettably applies to much of "The Cut." That word is "narm." Narm is
defined as a moment that is supposed to be serious or tear-jerking,
but due to poor execution becomes unintentionally funny. "The Cut" is
unfortunately the narmiest drama I've seen at Venice.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that's
certainly true of Fatih Akin's incredibly earnest and well-meaning
attempt to engage with the build-up, execution and fallout of the
Armenian Genocide carried out by the Ottoman authorities in the 1910s.
Obviously this is a huge and serious subject worthy of cinematic
treatment at the highest level -- which is regrettably not what Akin
delivers. Between 1 million and 1.5 million people are thought to have
been killed on death marches through the Syrian desert, during which
they were beaten, raped and murdered. Unfortunately, you don't really
get any impression of the massive scale of all this from "The Cut" --
its canvas is limited to the point that you could get the impression
that the persecution and massacres affected maybe a couple of thousand
people.
There isn't a sense in the film of this tragedy as a systematic,
organized atrocity affecting millions, which led to the coining of the
term genocide and influenced the Nazis (a specific quote allegedly
from Hitler -- "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of
the Armenians?" -- is contentious, but there is far less doubt that he
was influenced by these crimes). This matters; it does a disservice to
those killed to minimize their story, however unintentionally, and I
think it is unintentional -- a question of badly fluffed storytelling.
The reason for the detrimental lack of scale is possibly partly due to
budgetary issues, but mainly due to the creative decision to focus on
one man's story. There are certainly ways to pick out a single person
caught up in a large scale tragedy and use their story to personalize
the wider event. But the focus here on Tahar Rahim's blacksmith
Nazaret Manoogian is so narrow that almost everything else is
excluded.
When we meet Nazaret in 1915 in Mardin, he's a jolly fellow, proud of
his beautiful wife and twin daughters. The twins hand him a scarf
they've embroidered for him. You pretty much know instantly that the
scarf is going to be a symbol to cling onto when all else is lost, and
so it proves. Rumors are flying around the village that war is coming.
"Horrible carnage, many people dying," reports the twin's
schoolteacher ruefully. The actor's delivery of this line marked the
first point at which I shifted in my seat, no longer sure I was in
safe hands. And yes, the line is in English.
For some bizarre reason, the film is mostly English language spoken in
Armenian accents; a strange choice for a first English language
feature from Akin. There are occasional detours into subtitled
Turkish, which makes things even more confusing -- if you're going to
have some people who wouldn't have spoken English speak in English,
why not have the other people who wouldn't have spoken in English
speak in English? My best guess is it's an attempt at Othering the
Turkish for an English speaking audience -- we're on the side of the
Armenians -- but it's very jarring. It also throws up confusing
questions about Nazaret's understanding of actual English speakers
when the story eventually takes him to America.
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/review-fatih-akins-well-intended-the-cut-does-a-disservice-to-a-historical-tragedy