The Toronto Star
May 25, 2005 Wednesday
Latest roles are personal for Khanjian
by Martin Knelman, Toronto Star
In recent weeks the movie world’s attention has been focused on Atom
Egoyan, whose latest movie Where the Truth Lies has just had its
world premiere in official competition at the Cannes Festival.
But the festival is over, and now it is time for the spotlight to
shift to Egoyan’s personal and professional partner, Arsinee
Khanjian, whose new movie, Sabah, opens Friday.
Written and directed by Ruba Nadda, it’s the story of a 40-year-old
Muslim woman, who after spending her whole life in unquestioning
obedience to the demands of her family and community, falls in love
with a non-Muslim (played by Shawn Doyle, of the TV series The
Eleventh Hour) – and decides to risk everything.
“At first, I wasn’t sure why Ruba would want me for the part,” says
Khanjian.
True, Khanjian grew up in the Middle East, leaving Lebanon at age 17
for a new life in Canada. That meant she knew something about Arab
culture, history and language.
But unlike the character in this film, Khanjian, whose family roots
are Armenian, was raised as a Christian, not as a Muslim.
“When I read the script,” Khanjian explained at a cafe a few blocks
from her home in the Summerhill area, “I wondered about the premise
of a 40-year-old woman suddenly raising all these questions about the
traditions of her family.”
She even asked the director: “Are you making this character 40 years
old just because you want me to play the part?”
The director explained that she really wanted the character to be
this age. It is because of her age that she is so determined. She’s
old enough to realize how important this relationship is to her.
That determination is something Khanjian can relate to.
“I was very rebellious as a teenager,” she says, laughing.
She was always questioning authority – demanding to know why.
When she told her mother she wanted to be an actress, the answer was:
“No way.” Her parents had settled in Montreal so their children could
get a proper education. And theatre class did not count as real
education. Consequently, Arsinee wound up taking political science at
the University of Toronto before belatedly rekindling her acting
aspirations.
“Actually, I broke two taboos,” Khanjian confesses.
Becoming an actor was one. Which is how she came to appear in an
Armenian version of The Mousetrap before breaking into movies and TV.
Getting a divorce was another. After a brief first marriage, she met
Egoyan – and realized this was the man she was destined to spend her
life with.
Since then she has appeared in almost all of Egoyan’s films, most
recently Ararat, about the 1915 Armenian genocide. And in 2002, she
joined him in Cannes for the film’s world premiere.
This year she stayed home while he went to Cannes. She has just a
cameo role in Where the Truth Lies.
But she is unquestionably the star of an unpublicized Egoyan movie
that could be destined to become an underground classic. It is called
Citadel, and it was supposed to be a home movie for private
consumption.
It’s about Khanjian’s first trip back to Lebanon in nearly 30 years.
It happened in 2003, when the couple was invited to Lebanon for a
festival screening of Ararat.
Egoyan kept a record of this highly emotional experience, using a
tiny camera. It was intended for their 10-year-old son to see years
later, to help him understand his parents.
It never occurred to Khanjian this emotional experience would ever be
for public consumption.
“Atom tapes a lot, and I thought he was doing his usual thing. But
when we came back, he said ‘I would like to make a film of this.’ At
first I was just terrified of the idea, and I said, ‘You can’t show
me like this. This shows me in a very private place. I felt it showed
a side of me I never wanted to reveal to anyone.”
The result is a riveting personal documentary. Egoyan and Khanjian
have reached a compromise solution. The film will be shown in a very
limited way, at one location only – at Camera, the tiny
cinema-cum-bar on Queen Street W., which Egoyan co-owns.
For those who have wanted to know what Arsinee Khanjian is really
like, Citadel probably not coming soon to a theatre near you – is the
movie that truly shows where the truth lies.