I watched it last night and the impression is amazing. What kind of the great director he is? There are so many emotions, so much the ability to convey all of us into his thoughts and feelings. Interesting Atom Egoyan, whose movies keep our attentiont for hundred percent , with subjects that bring a new blood into the cinema's world , congested by American films, a director who has one characteristic thing, that must have any role for his wife in almost every movie , the beautiful actress Arsinée Khanjian. This time, the topic is the genocide committed by the Turks against the Armenians in Vanu 1915. , through the view of the famous Armenian painter Arshil Gorky, and all through the book of historian of arts Ani (Arsinée). There is a striking role, to my great surprise, of Charles Aznavour. And what about the music in the movie? I was left breathless, this can't be described, it must be listened, especially the opera aria at the end of this unique film. Like many times , the rating which you may see on IMDB is wrong and just ignore it ,right.

This movie is quite informative... I'd say too informative, and the reason is that the writer/director lagged on endlessly on making the characters explain way too much instead of allowing the medium of film and image explain it. That's something I've always been against, the excessive ultra intellectual dialogue which makes the plot come across as unreal. Yes, there are people all over who know topics and issues, but when you bring that to a screen it becomes another version of The Da Vinci Code, before or after the latter's production. The acting isn't good, not even Christopher Plummer's or Elias Koeats'... but that can be attributed to the writing and direction. The acting was stilted and preachy on most sides. The information provided was great and the scenes from the Armenian Genocide are shocking. No complains there. Directors and writers MUST understand that jam-packing dialogue into a 120 minute piece only makes a movie unwatchable, unless you're interested in the topic, of course. Cramming lines doesn't work in a visual medium. 12 Years a Slave is a perfect example of how to rely not on dialogue but on the subtlety of camera movements and the talent of a well chosen cast. Anyways, that's my take on Ararat to which I'm still awarding 7/10 although it should be a 6.5/10

As the president of Turkey announced to the world 1 year ago, Turkish government is opened all of the Ottoman's archive they have which is millions of documents for all history researches about world war 1 and sending all Armenian to the place that they can live peacefully. But neither the Armenian government is seem to use this opportunity nor they didn't even consider it as an option.Moreover they are still not opening their archives they are just blaming with not giving reason Because they know that its not a genocide its just what they use to get elected in their country and targeting a big enemy so that they can be united.Turkey doesn't have millions of dollars to spend on this issue there are no movies about so this called genocide that made in Turkey. What we do make special effects and editing in those armenian genocide and Ararat movies because in Armenia they don't have that technology we help them to express theirselves. Because we are indulgent to every opinion and we respect them but we cant except thing that didn't happened.

I don't have a dog in the historic fight here, but expected to learn something I didn't know from the film. As a history buff, I had high hopes of insight into the historic context of the time, the actions taken by the two sides, how they viewed the situation, and/or why they did what they did.Instead, the opportunity was squandered on a long, drawn out, absolutely boring melodrama involving some obscure family conflict, a gratuitous if titillating sex scene, some bizarre injection of homosexuality and atheism creating stress in an aging character with nothing at all to do with the history, and a lot of drippy and pointless personal drama. The only history to be seen consisted of one dimensional Turks and Armenians shooting each other, especially the former shooting and raping civilians of the latter.The actual historical actors were like cartoon characters. One might, for example, have liked to know that the American doctor was doing in the middle of Turkey. Or why the Turk commander felt he needed to do what he did. Instead, the historic conflict is treated with all the depth of a Road Runner cartoon, while the main focus is on some kid and his girlfriend going through an emotional life crisis. Either, done well, might have been interesting. Both mashed together and done poorly are like a cherry pie with asparagus filling. Boring, unenlightening, and patched together, it was as if someone had taken some cheap footage of war from a century ago and randomly spliced in parts of various soap operas. What a waste of an opportunity.This movie just sucked. I don't usually express my opinion that way, but frankly it just sucked. I can understand why either side with a political axe to grind might feel compelled to love or hate the film, but having none I found it almost unwatchably boring.