FILM REVIEW: SCREAMERS **

Globe and Mail, Canada
June 8 2007

Rockumentary has an admirable agenda but strikes too many flat notes
STEPHEN COLE

Screamers Directed by Carla GarapedianStarring System of a
DownClassification: 18A Rating: **

Is it possible to get mad at a film that has its heart and soul in
the right place?

Screamers is a rockumentary by former BBC World News anchor Carla
Garapedian. The film follows the Armenian-American heavy metal band
System of a Down around the world, listening in as the group noisily
informs fans about the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish
nationalist thugs from 1915 to 1917.

The group hopes to generate pressure on the U.S. and Britain, forcing
them to recognize the Armenian genocide (as Canada has). To that end,
there is a Dennis and Me interlude, where the band pursues Republican
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

If this sounds intriguing, we should add that System of a Down is a
lousy live band. And director Garapedian, for all her public-minded
zeal, isn’t capable of corralling her interviews and opinions into
a coherent polemic.

And yes, we can and should get mad at Screamers because the film
represents a blown opportunity. After all, how many documentaries
about the tragedy that disgraced the Ottoman Empire is the BBC going
to sponsor?

More questions: Garapedian interviews Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian
journalist prosecuted by authorities for "insulting Turkishness"
with articles on the Armenian genocide. Why didn’t she enlist him
as the film’s essential tour guide as opposed to a random talking
head? If the filmmaker felt she needed an "entertainment angle,"
why didn’t she tell the story of another interview subject here,
Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel Prize-winning novelist? Pamuk was driven
from Turkey by ultranationalists for stating, "Thirty-thousand Kurds
and a million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but
me dares to talk about it."

Presumably, we get System of a Down because the four-man group,
every one the grandson of an Armenian genocide survivor, scream for
justice for their ancestors. While the world should holler along,
we should first know exactly what happened in the Ottoman Empire in
the evil days of 1915-17.

Here, Screamers never really does the job of a documentary.

That System of a Down aren’t up to the task becomes apparent when
singer Serj Tankian finally confronts Hastert.

"Have you read our letter?" he asks.

"No," Hastert replies.

"Well, I’m sure you’re busy," Tankian says.

So much for screaming.

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