Ararat
Why does this have to be so complicated and convoluted? There’s at least three interlocking stories here, stories withing stories.
The outside story is a meta-story, about doing the very same film we are seeing in the inner stories. The film’s story is a melodramatic Armenian genocide portrayal, but some scenes are seen as the film itself. Finally, there’s the painter’s story, set during the same Armenian genocide which he survived, then lived in the US for a while.
The painter’s story is similar to many survivors, clinging to memories of absolute horror. His father had emigrated, so he and his mother endured a Turkish massacre. He escaped to America, where he painted, but his masterpiece was a reproduction of the only picture of his and his mother. He eventually shot himself.
The film is focused on an American doctor that was in Turkey at the time, and tried to save the Armenians sheltering near their compound. He even personality parlayed with the Turkish military leader, but it was for nought. They were slaughtered anyway.
The outermost story is how the film was made. They hire an Armenian scholar living in Canada to get the painter into the film, by re-writing some minor kid character. She was married to an Armenian man that died trying to kill a Turkish diplomat. The main character is her son.
The daughter from the father’s previous marriage is now seeing the main character. Said crazy woman lives in a hothouse or something, and hates her stepmom. Her hatred comes from the fact her father died after the stepmom told him about her affair. It’s all very melodramatic.
There’s also a very ancillary story with some airport border investigator, and his gay son who just moved in with his son and boyfriend (which turns out plays the Turkish dude in the film).
The half-sister is really the same actress from Maelström. I was doubting myself, thinking all French-Canadian women were the same, but she’s actually the same. Similar typecast as the crazy person, too.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.