Seldom seen outside of the festival circuit, the works of Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Gariné Torossian are experimental in the extreme, often mixing 35mm/ 16mm drawn-on-film or distressed-celluloid techniques, mated with video and digital (often low resolution—one had best have an affection for jaggies, pixels, elementary monochrome, and "solarization" electronic camera filters).
On this surprisingly vibrant canvas the filmmaker weaves iconography of Armenian culture, folk arts, mysticism, loss and yearning. Needless to say, an informed background is a major prerequisite. If you have never heard of director Sergei Parajanov or his non-narrative The Color of Pomegranates, bewilderment may ensue.
This collection has two mosaic-like Torossian short subjects, "The Girl From Moush" (1994) and the slightly more accessible "My Own Obsession" (1996), heavy with Armenian imagery and emotions of immigrant-refugee dislocation and yearning to reconnect with ethnic roots. The 2007 feature Stone Time Touch follows this thread, as a docu-essay, albeit highly impressionistic/abstract and personal.
Two women travel independently from Toronto to their ancestral Armenia. One (Kamee Abrahamian) young and a wide-eyed tabula-rasa about the whole experience, the other (esteemed actress Arsinée Khanjian), doing the bulk of the introspective narration as an older, more sophisticated Armenian-Canadian; sometimes she even questions the philosophical value of the journey, as the camera tours ruined tumbled-over towns and domeless churches —legacies of civil war, the collapse of Soviet communism and a catastrophic earthquake.
These are travails of decades earlier from which Armenia has yet to emerge. A pilgrimage to the somber memorial to the 1915 genocide of the Armenians under the Turks (followed by an interview with an old woman claiming to be a survivor and witness) underscores the ambiance of an ancient place with enduring wounds, yet inhabited by a proud and resilient people.
This is all rendered not as plain-dealt NatGeo material but as a mélange of visual poetry, vintage photos and aged footage, folk songs, processions, feasts and religious celebrations (Armenia was the first nation to officially adopt Christianity), artistically stylized landscapes of mountains, faces, and primordial-looking ruins. Viewers just wanting a who/what/where and business hours for the Hard Rock Café Armenia are advised to look elsewhere. The pull of Torossian's esoteric Armenian visions are much stronger for collections leaning towards the avant-garde, as well as those showcasing Armenia and Near East heritage. Aud: C, P