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Screen Daily
Sept 1 2014
The Cut
Dir: Fatih Akin. Germany-France-Italy-Russia-Poland-Canada-Turkey.
2014. 138mins
German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin takes on the Armenian genocide in
a sprawling historical epic that is both politically committed
atrocity drama and Western-tinged émigré odyssey. Owing a declared
debt to Elia Kazan's Turkish emigration tale America, America, this
lavish seven-territory co-production stars A Prophet's Tahir Rahim in
his first unabashedly commercial role as a father looking for the twin
daughters he was separated from during the persecutions of 1915.
The Cut is a tribute to old-fashioned filmmaking values in its
confident widescreen look and detailed, cast-of-hundreds historical
reconstructions: every frame declares war on cinematic austerity. And
yet despite the heady sweep through ten years and two continents, and
the (surprisingly muted) emotional catharsis of the quest plotline,
there's something about the film's generous old-school spend that
leaves us feeling short-changed.
Much of the problem is the main character, Nazaret, who is in every
scene: he's a pleasant, unremarkable everyman, whose one quality is a
stubborn survival instinct and the determination to get his family
back. The director's (producer-prompted?) decision to have all the
Armenians speak halting English to each other is another issue. In
reaching for a wider market it could just have the opposite effect,
certainly in Anglophone territories where the sort of crossover
arthouse audiences this will be pitched at can be fussy about dialogue
authenticity, and tend to have no fear of subtitles.
Nazaret's stolid plod through adversity means that there's little
ethical resonance other than righteous anger in a film in which the
experiences of hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were killed or
left to die during the forced deportations of World War I are just one
of the obstacles on our hero's picturesque road to reconciliation.
Even when Nazaret attacks and robs a man in Cuba, the only consequence
is that he now has the money to pay for his passage to Florida.
They did stories like that in the 1970s - and Akin's drafting in of
veteran early-period Scorsese screenwriter Mardik Mardin to share the
script credit is evidence that he likes it that way. But without The
Piano Player's deft weaving of historical tragedy and personal moral
drama, or the sheer character magnetism of other picaresque genre
dramas like Barry Lyndon or Scarface, The Cut feels a little like a
megalomaniac TV miniseries that's been trimmed back by an editorial
committee from six hours to two and a half.
Opening in a golden pre-atrocity glow of happy Armenian Christian
families in the town of Mardin, where Nazaret (Rahim) works as a
metalsmith, the film presents the genocide as a mix of deliberate
ethnic cleansing, end-of-empire anarchy and bureaucratic negligence.
Though much has been made of the ethnic-Turkish Akin's bravery at
taking this taboo subject on, he himself has pointed out that the
climate of opinion has changed in Turkey in recent years, especially
since the publication of journalist Hasan Cemal's book 1915: The
Armenian Genocide.
Nazaret is separated from his wife Rakel and twin daughters early on;
after a stint of forced labour in a road-building crew that is
destined for slaughter when the Ottoman army pulls out, he makes a
miraculous escape when his throat is stabbed rather than slit by a
conscience-stricken conscript. From here it's a long switchback
journey via armed bands of deserters and a horrific desert refugee
camp to Aleppo, where he is taken in by a kindly soap merchant. Years
pass before he discovers by chance that his daughters are still alive
- cue for a second-act energy reboot that takes Nazaret from Syrian
orphanages to Cuban barrios, Florida mangrove swamps and finally the
wintry wastes of Minnesota in his search for closure.
It's difficult to discern the Akin of Head On in much of a film that
seems to prize production design, costumes and score (a lush emotional
affair) over script and character development. Sure, it's beautiful to
look at, with cinematographer Rainer Klaussman giving an artsy Western
feel to Nazaret's journey through Syrian deserts and snowy Minnesota
steppes. But there are times - such as the over-melodramatic, over-CGI
scenes set in the Ras-al-Ayn death camps - when we feel we're in the
Armenian genocide franchise of Les Miserables. And Rahim's honest
performance as an innocent whose everyman survivor status is too
obviously flagged by a Charlie Chaplin silent-film screening he
attends in Aleppo is not enough to redeem this well-made, worthy,
wandering epic.
Production companies: Bombero International, Pyramide Productions, Pandora Film
International sales: The Match Factory, [email protected]
Producers: Fatih Akin, Karl Baumgartner, Reinhardt Brundig, Nurhan
Sekerci-Porst, Flaminio Zadra
Screenplay: Fatih Akin, Mardik Martin
Cinematography: Rainer Klaussman
Editor: Andrew Bird
Production designer: Allan Starski
Music: Alexander Hacke
Main cast: Tahar Rahim, Hindi Zahra, Makram J. Khoury, Kevork
Malikyan, Arsinee Khanijan, Bartu Kucukcaglayan, Simon Abkarian
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-cut/5076883.article?blocktitle=REVIEWS&contentID=40296
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Sept 1 2014
The Cut
Dir: Fatih Akin. Germany-France-Italy-Russia-Poland-Canada-Turkey.
2014. 138mins
German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin takes on the Armenian genocide in
a sprawling historical epic that is both politically committed
atrocity drama and Western-tinged émigré odyssey. Owing a declared
debt to Elia Kazan's Turkish emigration tale America, America, this
lavish seven-territory co-production stars A Prophet's Tahir Rahim in
his first unabashedly commercial role as a father looking for the twin
daughters he was separated from during the persecutions of 1915.
The Cut is a tribute to old-fashioned filmmaking values in its
confident widescreen look and detailed, cast-of-hundreds historical
reconstructions: every frame declares war on cinematic austerity. And
yet despite the heady sweep through ten years and two continents, and
the (surprisingly muted) emotional catharsis of the quest plotline,
there's something about the film's generous old-school spend that
leaves us feeling short-changed.
Much of the problem is the main character, Nazaret, who is in every
scene: he's a pleasant, unremarkable everyman, whose one quality is a
stubborn survival instinct and the determination to get his family
back. The director's (producer-prompted?) decision to have all the
Armenians speak halting English to each other is another issue. In
reaching for a wider market it could just have the opposite effect,
certainly in Anglophone territories where the sort of crossover
arthouse audiences this will be pitched at can be fussy about dialogue
authenticity, and tend to have no fear of subtitles.
Nazaret's stolid plod through adversity means that there's little
ethical resonance other than righteous anger in a film in which the
experiences of hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were killed or
left to die during the forced deportations of World War I are just one
of the obstacles on our hero's picturesque road to reconciliation.
Even when Nazaret attacks and robs a man in Cuba, the only consequence
is that he now has the money to pay for his passage to Florida.
They did stories like that in the 1970s - and Akin's drafting in of
veteran early-period Scorsese screenwriter Mardik Mardin to share the
script credit is evidence that he likes it that way. But without The
Piano Player's deft weaving of historical tragedy and personal moral
drama, or the sheer character magnetism of other picaresque genre
dramas like Barry Lyndon or Scarface, The Cut feels a little like a
megalomaniac TV miniseries that's been trimmed back by an editorial
committee from six hours to two and a half.
Opening in a golden pre-atrocity glow of happy Armenian Christian
families in the town of Mardin, where Nazaret (Rahim) works as a
metalsmith, the film presents the genocide as a mix of deliberate
ethnic cleansing, end-of-empire anarchy and bureaucratic negligence.
Though much has been made of the ethnic-Turkish Akin's bravery at
taking this taboo subject on, he himself has pointed out that the
climate of opinion has changed in Turkey in recent years, especially
since the publication of journalist Hasan Cemal's book 1915: The
Armenian Genocide.
Nazaret is separated from his wife Rakel and twin daughters early on;
after a stint of forced labour in a road-building crew that is
destined for slaughter when the Ottoman army pulls out, he makes a
miraculous escape when his throat is stabbed rather than slit by a
conscience-stricken conscript. From here it's a long switchback
journey via armed bands of deserters and a horrific desert refugee
camp to Aleppo, where he is taken in by a kindly soap merchant. Years
pass before he discovers by chance that his daughters are still alive
- cue for a second-act energy reboot that takes Nazaret from Syrian
orphanages to Cuban barrios, Florida mangrove swamps and finally the
wintry wastes of Minnesota in his search for closure.
It's difficult to discern the Akin of Head On in much of a film that
seems to prize production design, costumes and score (a lush emotional
affair) over script and character development. Sure, it's beautiful to
look at, with cinematographer Rainer Klaussman giving an artsy Western
feel to Nazaret's journey through Syrian deserts and snowy Minnesota
steppes. But there are times - such as the over-melodramatic, over-CGI
scenes set in the Ras-al-Ayn death camps - when we feel we're in the
Armenian genocide franchise of Les Miserables. And Rahim's honest
performance as an innocent whose everyman survivor status is too
obviously flagged by a Charlie Chaplin silent-film screening he
attends in Aleppo is not enough to redeem this well-made, worthy,
wandering epic.
Production companies: Bombero International, Pyramide Productions, Pandora Film
International sales: The Match Factory, [email protected]
Producers: Fatih Akin, Karl Baumgartner, Reinhardt Brundig, Nurhan
Sekerci-Porst, Flaminio Zadra
Screenplay: Fatih Akin, Mardik Martin
Cinematography: Rainer Klaussman
Editor: Andrew Bird
Production designer: Allan Starski
Music: Alexander Hacke
Main cast: Tahar Rahim, Hindi Zahra, Makram J. Khoury, Kevork
Malikyan, Arsinee Khanijan, Bartu Kucukcaglayan, Simon Abkarian
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-cut/5076883.article?blocktitle=REVIEWS&contentID=40296
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress