Ararat

Writer-director Atom Egoyan's heartfelt passion project is an abstractly structured account of both the 1915-1923 Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the massacre's emotional reverberation in the descendants of its survivors. Truth and shadow intertwine in a film weaving several stories from past and present into an intricate, elliptical narrative that is sometimes powerfully distressing, sometimes overly contrived, and sometimes downright confounding. Arsinée Khanjian stars as a somber, fortysomething Armenian-Canadian art historian who consults on a movie about the massacre. Meanwhile, her credulous, college-age son (David Alpay) recounts the tragedy to a dubious customs inspector (Christopher Plummer) as he tries to explain why he's returning from Turkey with several film reel canisters--which cannot be opened because they contain undeveloped footage for the movie. These complicated connections launch into scenes of real WWI-era events that give the film an interesting synchronicity, but ultimately the impact of the Armenian genocide is diluted by too much stage business in the modern day. An optional purchase. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by writer-director-producer Atom Egoyan, a 29-minute making-of featurette, 18 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary by Egoyan, cast and crew interviews, the nine-minute featurette “Raffi's Video Footage” shot by Hrair Hawk Khatcherian, the four-minute short “Portrait of Arshile” with commentary by Egoyan, the two-minute featurette “Arsinee Khanjian on Ararat,” scrolling text historical info, a trailer, and DVD-ROM features (including more info about Armenian genocide). Bottom line: an impressive extras package for a somewhat disappointing film.] (R. Blackwelder)