TRUTH AND LIES

The Sun
Monday, August 11, 2008
UK

ARARAT is a very powerful film from renowned director Atom Egoyan,
best known for his masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter.

The film is based around events of 1915-1918, when Turkey killed around
1.5million Armenians, something that Turkey has neither apologised
for nor hardly acknowledged to this day.

Raffi (David Alpay) is a young driver on a movie being made about
the Armenian holocaust.

On returning to Canada with cans of 35mm film he is stopped by customs
officer David (Christopher Plummer) and interrogated.

As the two talk, secret emotions begin to emerge and a present-day
story is enacted against the backdrop of the Armenian tragedy.

Egoyan says: "The challenge was to harness the epic consequences
of genocide with the intimate moments shared by contemporary
characters. If history is in the telling, life is in the making."

A strong movie — beware, though, some of the footage included is
very graphic.