Portrait of a genocide

Political opposition, artistic complexity, commercial butterflies... Canadian director Atom Egoyan's new film about ethnic cleansing is stirring things up. Eve Gabereau investigates

Four years ago, Atom Egoyan said he wasn't ready to make a film about Armenian genocide. And then changed his mind. His new movie, Ararat, looks at the slaughter, in 1915, of over a million Armenians at the hands of the Turks who, by the by, have never officially apologised or admitted guilt for their actions. The government and history books maintain that the Armenians were merely "relocated" during the war and that some may have died along the way.

And yet the film is not a historical drama à la Schindler's List. An early draft of the script set the film at the time of the genocide but Egoyan abandoned it in favour of a story set in his native Toronto. He did this, he says, to "allow the viewer to experience the reality of horror in a spiritual sense, and not just present the obvious results of material and physical loss. Finding out about the 'mechanics' of the killings was a revelation, but the challenge was to harness the epic consequences of genocide with the intimate moments shared by contemporary characters."

Egoyan had already shot a film in Armenia in the early 1990s. His Calendar (1993) is a drama about a photographer on a calendar assignment to shoot 12 shots of historical landmarks in the area – a seemingly straightforward storyline, but one that would eventually lead to the making of Ararat. Egoyan couldn't return to the region to shoot because of the controversial nature of his new film. Instead, he sent someone with a DV camera to shoot surreptitiously for him and shot all the necessary locations in Drumheller, Alberta – a desert-like part of the Canadian prairies that has a remarkably similar landscape to Armenia.

Opposition to the film's politics was simmering even before it premiered in Cannes this year. In December 2001, the Turkish government threatened legal action and a general ban (hey, it worked with Alan Parker's Midnight Express, unseen for almost 25 years). A Turkish website, Forsnet, hosted an open letter to the film's US distributor, Miramax (owned by Walt Disney Co) protesting "a film fomenting hatred." It also suggested that Miramax ran "the serious risk of motivating [them] and other Turkish audiences to see other companies' films instead of Miramax and Walt Disney productions."

Not much of a threat, perhaps, but the controversy surrounding Ararat made Egoyan – and Miramax – rethink how they should present the film. Programmed to compete for the prestigious Palme d'Or, for which the The Sweet Hereafter was nomininated in 1997, Egoyan pulled Ararat from the competition because, he said, he didn't want the film to be pre-judged before it was even seen. The film screened to mixed reviews, and Egoyan decided to re edit the film before its theatrical release – officially to clarify the plot, possibly on Miramax's insistence to lighten the accusatory tone. (Ironically, the "wrong" print was shown at the Vancouver Film Festival last month, which "upset" Egoyan all over again).

Whether Ararat was re-arranged for political or commercial or personal reasons, the film still bears many of the auteur's hallmarks. The plot, for example, is typically labyrinthine. Egoyan argues that the "complexity and the structure of Ararat are absolutely necessary in order to tackle the extraordinary intersection of history, politics and filmmaking". All the present-day stories revolve around the making of a film – also called Ararat – and a historical re-enactment of the genocide in the city of Van in Ararat, an Armenian region of Turkey bordering on Iran and Iraq.

Egoyan based the film-within-the-film on the memoirs of an American missionary, Clarence Ussher, who was stationed in Van in 1915. Egoyan explains that Ussher (played by Bruce Greenwood: Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter) was a "heroic figure who was able to ensure that the American Mission in Van remained the safe zone in which the women and children could hide. There was a hospital inside the Mission and Ussher made sure that no guns came inside and that it remained absolutely neutral. It's sort of an Alamo-type story." The historical figure of Ussher created the string with which to bind all the interwoven plots.

One of Armenia's best-known artists also makes an appearance – Arshile Gorky, who survived the genocide though he lost his parents, and emigrated to America to become an influential painter and a forefather of Abstract Expressionism. Egoyan learned that Gorky was a boy in Van during the siege. Egoyan admits that it was "too irresistible not to incorporate information like that into the script". Gorky's remarkable story is brought into the present through Egoyan's wife, muse and regular lead, Arsinée Khanjian, who plays Ani, an art historian with a specialisation in the life and work of the artist. And her life gets tangled up with the film's respected Armenian director (Charles Aznavour), when he approaches Ani to advise him on the script. In turn, her 18-year-old son, Raffi (played by the delightful newcomer, David Alpay), becomes involved in the production as a driver. Egoyan conveys a world of relationships between people that ricochet through history.

The emotional resonance in the film emerges through seemingly offhand encounters. In one of the most touching, David (Christopher Plummer), an airport customs agent, stops Raffi at customs to question him about some sealed film canisters he is transporting to Canada from Turkey. Raffi has been to Turkey for deeply personal reasons, and shot films of his father's homeland. He tells Plummer that the footage is for Ararat, and that the canisters cannot be opened for inspection or the film will be destroyed by the light. David is suspicious: he may not know anything about film or Armenia, but he does know his job, and so he suspects that Raffi has got something to hide. As the interrogation continues, we learn that David is himself connected to the film – his son's half-Turkish boyfriend (Elias Koteas) is one of its stars – and has secrets of his own. Each character ends up affecting the other in powerful, and unexpected, ways.

Khanjian believes that present-day Canada, an immigrant nation, is the perfect setting for Ararat. "It represents a rich social fabric where diverse cultures and heritages rest – with people from elsewhere who understand the 'other'." Khanjian, a Lebanese-born Canadian with Armenian roots, feels deeply about all this. She explains that the opening song is about "absence, migration and the need to go away to make a living" and, as she talks, her eyes well up.

Robert Lantos, a regular Egoyan collaborator and the film's producer, says that Ararat "sheds light on a dark corner of history" and that we can "learn lessons from history by knowing it". That, he claims, is the essence of the film. But he is also concerned with the commercial side of the industry – his purpose is make a film that will interest the widest possible audience and therefore translate into the best possible box office returns. He sees his role as a producer, particularly in Canada where American movies dominate, as one of developing a viable, sustainable domestic industry.

For Egoyan, it's all about talking, about being open to communication with strangers, even hostile ones, as readily as we might with friends and family. In fact, it may be the only way to make sense of the deaths of millions. The need to talk, comments Egoyan, is an "integral part of truth and denial".

By showing the power of conversation to move people, Egoyan hopes to demonstrate that history becomes a creation of everyday gossip or chitchat: little details from everyone's story eventually add up to the official version. Egoyan says that history is "not only about telling stories, but also about finding someone to hear them. History is defined by conversations between complete strangers."

'Ararat' screens in the London Film Festival on Sunday 17 November, 6pm, and is set to open nationwide in the Spring 2003