Arnet818 This is an excellent film, and one that truly shows the thematic power and artistic depth that springs from Egoyan's sensual style and non-traditional narrative.The story's plot follows the production of a fictional film, a conflicted son in search of meaning, a retiring Canadian customs official, the artist Gorky, a scholar, and an entire history of a people plagued by genocide. Each plot line and most of the central characters are woven together in the most adroit, symbolic, and meaningful fashion, making the film a comprehensive study of truth, family, art, culture, history, and identity.If you are interested in a specific, historical account of the Armenian genocide or a biography of Gorky, this is not necessarily the film for you, since each character and topic is filtered through the cinematic prism of Egoyan's more personal vision. However, if you're a fan of Egoyan's work, you will likely enjoy it immensely. Many of the fine actors that repeatedly appear in his film are present, giving performances that each fall somewhere between good and great. Those relatively new faces that appear also fit well into Egoyen's familiarly styled tapestry. While it is true that some scenes come across as somewhat emotionally and psychologically untrue, it is a very intentional part of the film.Many of the cornerstone's of Egoyan's work are active in Ararat with great force and exceptional detail. There's a deep Existentialist angst and keen awareness of the postmodern condition. The film is overloaded with symbolic and abstract meaning, at the direct expense of concrete, tangible truths. Emotion and history, accompanied by acrimony and taboos, permeates every aspect of duologue and character so that even inanimate objects fail to convey exact, firm meanings. Egoyan's knack for keeping his films superficially neat and stylish, despite tumultuous inner struggles and an often troubling cinematic picture is at its most compelling.If you're searching for a film with few questions, easy answers, a conventional story with even more conventional artistic devices, then this is not the film for you. However, if you're searching for a film that questions the very fundamental structure of society, history, and art, and one which provides infinitely more questions than it does solid answers, then this is a good film for you.

Bob Taylor I have seen directors who have a hard time leaving things out of their films; John Sayles comes to mind. Egoyan would have made a great picture if he could just have left the Gorky material out of the final script: it just doesn't fit, and slows down the pace considerably. Otherwise, the film-within-a-film idea works fine (as it did for Truffaut in Day For Night) and the actors do a good job. Celia's character is enigmatic at first, her behaviour around Ani very erratic, but as we get to hear more about her past the pieces fall into place. Raffi is an appealing hero--his blend of idealism for his Armenian heritage, longing for his dead father and wish to get out from under his mother's petticoats was well brought out. Christopher Plummer as David the customs agent was the best player: his fifty years of professional experience in acting served him well here. He is so sly, thoughtful and unexpectedly compassionate that I was bowled over.Every year on or around April 24, there is a demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy by members of the Armenian diaspora. I live on that street and have heard the speeches and response from the crowd many times. This film will help the message get out.

anatolian As the president of Turkey announced to the world 1 year ago, Turkish government is opened all of the Ottoman's archive they have which is millions of documents for all history researches about world war 1 and sending all Armenian to the place that they can live peacefully. But neither the Armenian government is seem to use this opportunity nor they didn't even consider it as an option.Moreover they are still not opening their archives they are just blaming with not giving reason Because they know that its not a genocide its just what they use to get elected in their country and targeting a big enemy so that they can be united.Turkey doesn't have millions of dollars to spend on this issue there are no movies about so this called genocide that made in Turkey. What we do make special effects and editing in those armenian genocide and Ararat movies because in Armenia they don't have that technology we help them to express theirselves. Because we are indulgent to every opinion and we respect them but we cant except thing that didn't happened.

rlange-3 I don't have a dog in the historic fight here, but expected to learn something I didn't know from the film. As a history buff, I had high hopes of insight into the historic context of the time, the actions taken by the two sides, how they viewed the situation, and/or why they did what they did.Instead, the opportunity was squandered on a long, drawn out, absolutely boring melodrama involving some obscure family conflict, a gratuitous if titillating sex scene, some bizarre injection of homosexuality and atheism creating stress in an aging character with nothing at all to do with the history, and a lot of drippy and pointless personal drama. The only history to be seen consisted of one dimensional Turks and Armenians shooting each other, especially the former shooting and raping civilians of the latter.The actual historical actors were like cartoon characters. One might, for example, have liked to know that the American doctor was doing in the middle of Turkey. Or why the Turk commander felt he needed to do what he did. Instead, the historic conflict is treated with all the depth of a Road Runner cartoon, while the main focus is on some kid and his girlfriend going through an emotional life crisis. Either, done well, might have been interesting. Both mashed together and done poorly are like a cherry pie with asparagus filling. Boring, unenlightening, and patched together, it was as if someone had taken some cheap footage of war from a century ago and randomly spliced in parts of various soap operas. What a waste of an opportunity.This movie just sucked. I don't usually express my opinion that way, but frankly it just sucked. I can understand why either side with a political axe to grind might feel compelled to love or hate the film, but having none I found it almost unwatchably boring.