A different dynamic is shaping up in representations of the Armenian Genocide. Until Ararat, the only sustained cinematic engagement with this moment that I knew of were Don Askarian’s films. Askarian, working in Berlin – he was exiled in the ’70s, after spending time in jail in Soviet Armenia – has made films where the Genocide was always vaguely present. But while his films can’t get away from the events, they can’t quite evoke them either. The most haunting moment in Komitas (1988) comes when we see an image of a mysterious figure wandering the countryside with a flame-thrower; you know what’s going on, even if you never really see it. His 1992 film Avetik is filled with images of an exiled filmmaker sitting in his Berlin apartment, projecting film onto his face, looking haunted.

There’s a similar tension at work in Ararat, which seldom visualises the Genocide that is ostensibly its topic; he only places moments of violence in scenes from the epic film-within-the-film. This need to shield yourself from the horror and from the fear of blaspheming the horror with meta-cinematic flourishes, is something Egoyan shares with Askarian. While the former is much more narrative and the latter much more avant garde, they both need to represent, to visualise, at the same time that they need to back away.

Their films are conflicted, but I don’t get the sense that the conflict short-circuits attempts at interpretation in the same way as in Hitler: A Film from Germany or Schindler’s List. When I consider the formal strategies of Syberberg and Spielberg, I mostly sense frustration; when I consider the strategies of Egoyan and Askarian, I sense cautious hope.

Jerry White is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Alberta

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