After Giving Birth Pants

Bitch History - Yerord dziavoré - Aghet: Ein Völkermord / Barking Island - The Third Rider - Aghet: A Genocide

© Sacrebleu Productions, 2010 - Manana Youth Films, 2008 - Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) / Trebitsch Entertainment (TE), 2010

Notes on three films screened at the ARPA Film Festival 2010: exploring modes of representation in history Bitch, The Third jumper and Aghet: genocide

by Myrna Douzjian

www.criticsforum.org

ARPA Film Festival is undoubtedly one of the international cultural events more exciting Los Angeles. The thirteenth edition took place during the week of 21 to 26 September 2010. For me it was the Armenian art event of the year, presenting the work of many Armenian filmmakers, and films with themes related to the Armenians. Among other notable moments, were the animated film by Serge Avedikian, Bitch history [Barking Island], a documentary by Gor Baghdasaryan, Yerord dziavoré [The Troisième cavalier] et celui d’Eric Friedler, Aghet : Ein Völkermord [Aghet : un génocide].

Chienne d’histoire (2010) a remporté la Palme d’Or du meilleur court-métrage au Festival du Film de Cannes cette année. Le film se situe dans la Constantinople de 1910, alors que le gouvernement Jeune-Turc décide de mettre un terme au problème des chiens errants dans la ville. Le film dépeint le sort pénible des chiens, séparés de leurs familles au moment de leur regroupement, puis déportés sur une île, où ils ne cessent de débarquer et où ils sont finalement abandonnés to die of hunger. Subtle details, but significant in the film - adding a book called The Committee of Progress central office of a Turkish official with photos of dogs as pets in the civilized European world, are highlight the paradox of the situation: this inhuman plan is implemented in the name of progress.

In fifteen minutes, Avédikian manages to bring viewers a deeper sympathy for these dogs cartoons. The film ends with a caption informing viewers that in 1910, 30,000 dogs were deported Constantinople to the island of Oxia, where they were "abandoned to their fate." The focus of the film on the government's decision to purge the city of stray dogs can be clearly read as an allusion to the Armenian Genocide, ominously suggesting that the brutal eradication of dogs following this event foreshadows history. The film highlights an important issue rarely raised, straddling the fine line between history and fiction: it means to read a set of historical events as a metaphor of another?

If the deportation of dogs defines the focus of historical Bitch history, genocide is the metaphorical subtext. Thus, while the film makes no historical mention of the Armenian genocide, Avédikian subtly connects the two historical episodes through the film's title. English translation, "barking island", fails to grasp the meaning of the original French, literally "dog of history." The reference to dogs as belonging to history contributes to a metaphorical reading. The French title makes dogs metaphorical, almost allegorical, not liners only of their kind, but the fate of their human counterparts, the Armenians.

The representation of the film, animation, also tends toward the fictional displayed, an artistic creation openly giving no illusion of reality. By the unsaid about the film deals brilliantly Avédikian the concept of genocide as qu'irreprésentable. Its representation in an animated form - in fact, doubly isolated from its historical roots, once through the allegory of the dogs, and again in an animated form - provides a brilliant and unexpected solution to the central problem of postmodernism : The impossibility of representing the truth and history.

Avédikian received a Career Achievement Award [price career success] when ARPA Film Festival. In his speech winner, he evoked the notion of "true testimony, he described as" fragmented "and" torn. " He also explained that the arts help us feel more deeply and better understand the world. Words that capture perfectly the spirit of history Bitch. The film Avédikian on the eradication of a dog pound grate new reading of the genocide - considering history as a chain of fragments that are mutually respond.


The Third Rider (2008) is a documentary consisting of interviews with Armenian citizens of all ages, all social classes and all professions. He received financial support from the Golden Apricot Film Development Programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), under the Tolerance project without Borders [Tolerance without borders]. The film presents different definitions of intolerance, through the testimonies of various people interviewed. The director presents the story simultaneously parallel, unscripted, children playing in a playground. The documentary alternates responses of interviewees and scenes with difficulties of interaction between children. The intertwined stories suggest a parallel between the intolerant views of adults and children unable to play together seamlessly.

The film opens with interviews Armenian citizens with older youth who complain. One blames the youth to listen to the music of a "black uglier than a monkey." His words could push back any viewer socially and culturally tolerant, as they suggest that racism is a non-issue for this man and, by extension, in some circles of the Armenian community. Other interviewees bemoan the fact that young people listen to what amounts to noise, they lack respect and are ignorant and they go around half naked belly with air. Then the film is returning on children playing in the garden, saying things like "I want to play alone! "And" I have no desire! . By juxtaposing the words of children with earlier interviews The Third Rider the link between independence exhibited by children and complaints of the older generation. And yet we do not know ultimately if the film portrays the conflicts of children as a result of the worldview they have taken from adults or the evocation of their behavior works as a commentary on the character of childish views adults interviewed.

The process of comparing the old and the new generation rises in talks with a young man and young woman, who argue that their elders do not want to understand everything that is different. The status of the more rebellious youth, presented at the beginning of the film, remains unresolved. Viewers are left to wonder about the prospect of half-naked young women and young men wearing earrings described by interviewees older, but never shown in the documentary.

The film also addresses the tensions between Armenians from Armenia and those in Diaspora. Centration of the film on intolerance in a community then crosses About Avédikian on intolerance that surrounds it. One interviewee, for example, expressed his frustration with the stereotype of Armenians from Armenia seen as dishonest, but it depreciates immediately to its own logic by reversing the finding and suggesting that the Armenian diaspora are less honest than those of Armenia . Full realization that another, even more deplorable: the Armenians of Diaspora profit from genocide, because they ended up living in the most civilized countries the world, while the Armenians of Armenia have been abandoned to their suffering. The interviewee goes conveniently ignored the physical losses, cultural and financial suffered by generations of Armenians, because of the genocide, in contrast with the Armenian diaspora as capitalist exploiters. The documentary works again return to the children in the playground "alienating" their equal, competing to see who is Armenian and is the "enemy", placing the limited perspective of the interviewee in a controversy larger that seems to characterize the Armenian community as such.

economic inequality obviously erode the perception of others interviewees, the film argues persuasively that the specific examples of intolerance that result identifies problems and socio-economic broader . The film leaves its audience with a final message of tolerance - ending with a plan of homes in Armenia and the voice of a homeless background, exclaiming: "I'm hungry! Please, my fellow help me! The words of this woman suggest both literal and that his hunger, metaphorical, tolerance and understanding, which the movie. While remaining faithful to the most basic design of the documentary as a subgenus of factual film, The Third Rider as Bitch history, uneasily straddles the line between fact and fiction, history and narrative .


Eric Friedler received the Humanitarian Award Armin T. Wegner Festival for his Aghet: genocide. In short, this film is the documentary on the Armenian genocide excellence, having genocide and the events surrounding it as a history lesson well documented. In a sense, the film revisits and reconstructed historical archives of the genocide, document by document. Its sources include the German and American consular reports, the memoirs of the U.S. ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, those missionaries and other witnesses as well as published news reports and television. The German actors playing the role of witnesses and historical figures, telling the events as well as various sources have reported. They narrate their stories in a tone without assignment, imparting a feeling of deep sadness and truth without equivocation. By highlighting the actual content of their speech and avoiding over-dramatization, the film gives the words of the narrators unparalleled strength. Aghet: genocide successfully traces the narrative arc of history that bitch merely suggest. While the film Avédikian away from the story for metaphor, allegory, that of Friedler uses direct and unadorned narrative of events by the narrators to bring the film as close as possible to a factual representation history.

One could see in Aghet: genocide a representation of the great history of genocide, like almost all Armenians know it. Not only is the documentary presents a detailed chronology of events, but it also refutes the revisionist theories in particular that the Armenians were deported as a threat to the Ottoman state. He responds to this type of justification by asking questions of common sense: why women, children and old helpless were they deported? why the deportation Was it implemented in all regions of the empire, even where there was no threat of war? If the extermination was not the ultimate goal, why were they forced prisoners to walk without being able to eat or drink? The director does not hide the powerful dynamics of the documentary to expose Turkey's efforts to rewrite the history of genocide.

Aghet: genocide also explains the relevance of genocide today, including sequences that have speeches by President Obama, debate on the resolution concerning the Armenian genocide in the Congress of the United States, the sensitive side of U.S. relations with Turkey and the murder of Hrant Dink. The film ends with a strong message, namely that genocide remains highly significant. The final plan shows the Armenians in Armenia mourning the death of Hrant Dink, while a woman holds up a placard which reads "1,500,000 + 1", effectively sending the message that genocide continues today, as history and Tragically, in fact (1).

The use of the term disaster The title of the documentary shows the nuanced vision of the event's director, as exceeding the memory and human understanding. Meanwhile, the equation of the term in the politically charged notion of genocide indicates the main drive of the film - to prove that the disaster was a Genocide. The attempt summarizes the concerns of these three films - the fundamental question of the distinction between history and fiction. While the other two films leave the question largely unresolved Aghet: genocide clearly pushes for historical truth. Result, while most of those seeking the facts finally leave this movie with the impression of being happy, others will come away with feelings of ambivalence and unease. As Marc Nichanian noted emphatically: "We affirm the world that we have been" genocide ", we constantly need to prove our own death. We are still dealing with the executioner. We still belong to the logic of the executioner, from side to side. "(Mark Nichanian. Loss: The Politics of Mourning [Loss: a policy of mourning]. Ed David L. Eng and David Kazanjian. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003). While it is certainly gratifying to see its own history recognized responsibly, attempted historical representation thus still leaves in its wake a series of disturbing questions about the genocide: all this has actually happened? that represents a real resolution? and for how long shall we bring the weight of the evidence in this destructive cycle Nichanian IDENTIFIED? Nevertheless, Aghet: genocide realize the formidable task of convincing his audience of the veracity of his presentation of the unfathomable.

Although different from the artistic and thematic with genres ranging from animation to documentary, these three films - History Bitch, The Third jumper and Aghet: genocide - tend toward the "real" in ways thought-provoking, leaving the viewer often troubled, but at the same time undoubtedly enriched.

Note

1. One can not help wondering if the condemnation of Turkey in the film is not motivated by the contemporary tensions between Germans and Turks. Anyway, the material Film exposes unequivocally the complicity of Germany in the genocide perpetrated by the Turkish government. While, as a powerful ally Turkey, the German government was able to stop the genocide, Germany remained silent on this issue. Moreover, as one interviewee regret, the Turks "used guns [German]. Friedler this material which condones nor the German government nor his Turkish counterpart. In doing so, it calls for recognition and reparation.

[ Myrna Douzjian is a PhD student in the Department Comparative Literature at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she teaches literature and techniques of expression.]

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Source: http://www.criticsforum.org/pdf/1288747858.pdf
Translation: © George Festa - 02.2011
Courtesy Tchalian of Hovig, chief editor of Critics' Forum .