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An uncompromising look at the horrors of the Armenian genocide

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  • An uncompromising look at the horrors of the Armenian genocide

    Providence Journal
    Aug 1 2009


    An uncompromising look at the horrors of the Armenian genocide

    01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 2, 2009
    By Michael Janusonis
    Journal Arts Writer



    The 13th Rhode Island International Film Festival officially begins
    its six-day run Tuesday night with a gala at the Providence Performing
    Arts Center, followed by a series of short films on the giant
    screen. But it will actually kick off Monday with a couple of special
    screenings: a 10 a.m. showing of Monsters Vs. Aliens 3-D at Providence
    Place Cinemas and a 6:30 p.m. screening at the Columbus Theater of
    Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's 2007 historical epic The Lark Farm.

    Despite its bucolic name, The Lark Farm is an uncompromising look at
    the horrors of the Armenian genocide launched by the Turks in 1915,
    when World War I was going badly for them. The massacre was carried
    out amidst fears that the substantial Christian Armenian population,
    who had always been second-class citizens in the Muslim Ottoman
    Empire, was going to join the Russians who were fighting the Turks in
    the war.

    During the genocide, which began in 1915, many Armenian men were
    arrested and killed. The women and children were deported to a desert
    region near the Syrian border, though many of them perished during the
    forced marches. In the end, it is estimated that between 1 million and
    1.5 million Armenians died in this holocaust. Unnervingly, their story
    parallels events that began two decades later in Germany when the
    Nazis attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

    Trying to tell such a broad-based story is a daunting undertaking,
    except perhaps as a documentary. But the writing-directing Tavianis,
    who are in their late 70s and whose output over the decades includes
    the groundbreaking Padre Padrone and Night of the Shooting Stars, made
    this history very personal by focusing on one family as it struggled
    to survive in an increasingly bleak and trying situation.

    The Lark Farm revolves around the lives of the prosperous Avankian
    family, who live in a fine house in the city and have recently
    restored the big house at their homestead in the countryside, Lark
    Farm, to its former ornate grandeur. But the war has broken out,
    threatening the already wobbly Ottoman Empire, and the Avankians are
    hearing inklings that things will not go well for the Armenians.

    When the family patriarch dies at the start of the film, he warns with
    his dying breath to flee, but no one pays heed. His son, Aram (Tcheky
    Karyo), a wealthy businessman, believes things will pretty much
    continue as they always have with just a few rough spots. His beatific
    wife, Armineh (Arsinee Khanjian), puts up a brave front, but is not so
    convinced. His sister, the headstrong Nunik (Paz Vega), has fallen in
    love with a Turkish officer (Alessandro Preziosi), who plots to leave
    the army and flee with her across the border because he has heard
    rumors that bad things might come. `There's no hope for us here. I'm a
    Turk and you're Armenian,' he tells Nunik.

    It seems like a set-up for what will be a Romeo-Juliet romance, but
    The Lark Farm soon grows much darker even than that classic tale. Soon
    the resentment toward the Armenians, who are seen by some Turks as a
    sort of fifth column of traitors and spies, spirals out of
    control. Plans are afoot to arrest the Armenian leaders quietly,
    including Aram. But things quickly get out of hand when a hot-headed
    officer gets involved and events slip away from the control of the
    colonel who is in charge of this region. A decent man who has
    befriended the Armenians, he tries to prevent the killing, but is too
    late.

    The attack on the Avankians and their neighbors, who have arrived at
    Lark Farm in hopes of finding refuge from the Turks, is horrific and
    bloody. It sets the tone for the terrors that will follow, which will
    see most of the men murdered and the women sent off on a long march
    toward the desert with little food to sustain them. In desperation,
    some of them turn to selling sexual favors for a loaf of bread. Others
    are killed outright or left to die at the side of the road. The Lark
    Farm becomes a study in human cruelty.

    Cinematically, it's powerful and yet that power is muted somewhat by
    the melodramatic way events unfold on screen. The Armenians are
    pictured as innocents and saints; most Turks as soulless
    monsters. Some scenes and characters are overplayed. At one point, a
    Turkish soldier who has arrived at the Avankian manse during their
    dinner, covetously looks at a tureen that's filled with soup, spilling
    its contents on the table and making a grab for the tureen with greed
    in his eyes. There are many such scenes that lack subtlety.

    Nevertheless, the plight of the Avankians, whose brother in Italy
    desperately attempts to raise money to get them out of Turkey, is
    emotionally riveting. It expands to include the tale of a Muslim
    beggar who tries to help the family, which has always been good to
    him, hatching an elaborate rescue plan. It goes back to focus on Nunik
    who finds herself in a camp where she falls in love with another
    Turkish soldier and is involved in a selfless act to save what's left
    of her family. Vega gives a poignant performance as Nunik, who has
    nowhere left to turn. She puts a face on the struggles of the Armenian
    people during this dark period.

    http://www.projo.com/movies/content/artsu n-Lark-Farm-review_08-02-09_O1F384B_v17.2b0a22a.ht ml
    From: Baghdasarian
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