‘SCREAMERS’ FAILS ITS MAIN MISSION
By Guido Pellegrini, Daily Bruin; SOURCE: UCLA

Daily Bruin, UCLA, California
December 7, 2006 Thursday

FILM REVIEW

"Screamers" is an apt name for this documentary — an impassioned,
often incoherent, but always affecting look at genocide throughout
the past 90 years.

Director Carla Garapedian ("Beneath the Veil") alternates between
concert footage of Armenian-American rock band System of a Down,
interviews with scholars and grainy newsreels of massacres and
killings.

The juxtapositions don’t quite work as a narrative; Garapedian attempts
to segue from System of a Down’s lyrics about the Armenian Genocide
of 1915 to the problem of genocide as a whole, but sadly fails.

And every time the film starts flirting with worldwide issues, it
returns to the small story of the band. Alternatively, just when the
film seems destined to become an intimate portrait of four musicians
fighting for a cause, the focus abruptly expands, leaving the audience
with a jarring sense of whiplash.

There’s also little in the way of subtlety, what with the atrocities
of genocide being delineated with blunt precision. Yet this doesn’t
actually hurt "Screamers." In fact, it’s the whole point.

System of a Down’s loud instrumentals and searing voice work, likewise
unsubtle, combine with Garapedian’s forceful editing to give the
whole film an aura of burgeoning anger.

It becomes clear after a while that for Garapedian the film’s title
constitutes the only real response one can have toward genocide. We
must all scream in protest, and as loud as we can.

This screaming, however, should not be directed solely at the
perpetrators of genocides, but also at the international community
that does little to stop genocide when it happens.

Governments, argues Garapedian, care more for neutrality and economic
foreign relationships than they do about human rights. As a result,
nothing is done when one culture attempts to eradicate another;
until it’s too late, that is.

It’s a powerful indictment and one that calls for numerous examples
from different conflicts. Unfortunately, though the required examples
are indeed provided, the film’s fixation on the Armenian Genocide
hides the broadness of the themes under the shadow of specificity.

In another context this would not be a problem. The Armenian Genocide
is a fascinating subject for any artistic endeavor (see Atom Egoyan’s
"Ararat"). But in this case, it feels like Garapedian set out to make
a film exclusively about the Armenian Genocide, and then last-minute
decided she wanted her documentary to be a general overview of
history. Consequently, she succeeded at neither.