As a retired history teacher, I think I should explain the context for "The Cut". It is set in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The Empire is on its last legs, having lasted for many centuries, it's on the losing side in the war and would soon be broken up into many countries. In the meantime, the ruling Turks had many ethnic groups and religions within the empire. During this time, many Christians there were being persecuted...but none more vigorously than the Armenians. These people were despised by the empire and a horrible genocide was committed. Many of the Armenian men were pressed into the army and then literally worked to death. As for most of the women and children, they were herded into vast concentration camps where they were simply not fed or given water and died in the desert heat. Estimates are that in total between 800,000 and 1,500,000 Armenians died during this short period...and the remainder who managed to escape became exiles living abroad. Oddly, while most everyone throughout the world acknowledges that this occurred, still today Turkey denies that this occurred and many of its allies are unwilling to publicly mention it. In light of all this, the collaborative team of Faith Akin (Director and co- writer) and Mardik Martin (co-writer) is quite unusual. Faith is a German of Turkish descent and Mardik is an Armenian-American--a very unlikely pair working to expose the truth.The film begins with Armenian men being pressed into work gangs by the army. Their work is back-breaking and soon you see them die one by one. When they don't die quick enough, the officer in charge orders his men to slit the throats of all the Armenians--no use wasting bullets on them. One of the men forced to kill has a conscience and has a hard time getting himself to kill one of the prisoners. At gunpoint, he finally stabs the man in the throat...but it isn't fatal and the soldiers assume the Armenian is dead. However, Nazaret is only gravely wounded and eventually the man who stabbed him returns to help him escape. Unfortunately, Nazaret is left mute--unable to talk because of the wound. Throughout the rest of the film, Nazaret slowly searches for his family and his journey takes him from Turkey to the Middle East to Cuba and eventually to the Dakotas in the United States! Is he able to find any of his family or were they simply liquidated like most of his people?This is a very well made and, at times, extremely unpleasant movie. This is not a complaint. After all, you cannot make genocide a happy thing and, like Schindler's List, it's often rather depressing and harrowing. This is certainly not a film for children--they can always watch it when they're older and if you do let them see it, by all means watch it with them. Once you get through the sad and awful parts in the first part of the film, you'll find that it's a bit easier to watch. My only reason for not scoring it a bit higher is because of two minor problems. First, you can tell that the film was made on a limited budget and many of the scenes should have been much larger in scope and had more actors, didn't. As examples, the death camp scene and the portion with the army forcing the Armenians to work themselves to death only had a tiny number of actors--only a few dozen at most. Additionally, at times the film is a bit slow-- particularly during the second half. Neither of these things, however, are serious problems and the film is worth seeing and as well as finely crafted. Excellent direction and a sprawling, epic quality, along with an important subject matter, make this a truly memorable viewing experience.

As if the director is trying to purposefully demoralize the Armenians.Armenian women preferred to kill themselves and threw themselves from cliffs to protect their dignity. The exact opposite of what the movie shows. In the movie, one girl at the camp in Ras-Al-Ain says I'll do anything take me out of here.Armenian prayer sounds like "balbalbalbal"? Seriously? and the turks would've let the Armenian priest maintain his bible and pray on route?!Nazareth and Krikor watch an Armenian woman wash herself in Aleppo? Seriously; men who had just lost their wives and daughters, and witnessed them getting raped, would go to a whore-house?!Armenian music and songs are so poor that there is only one song and it's Janoi, Janoi, Janoi, Jan?Armenians went to great lengths in rejoining families and rescuing abducted girls and orphans... there are real stories about that. Why Cuba and Minneapolis, what's the hidden agenda behind those?

IN Turkey today it is a serious crime to use the word "Genocide" in reference to the systematic expulsion of Armenians from Turkish Soil in the period from 1915 to 1923. During this time 1.5 million Armenians (highly conservative estimate!) were either murdered outright or perished on forced death marches through the Syrian desert. A few Turkish intellectuals have spoken out against the official Turkish policy of Genocide Denial but, needless to say, there has never been a Turkish film touching this theme --- Until now! THE CUT, Directed by German-Turkish filmmaker Faith Akin pulls no punches in depicting Turkish Brutality in excruciating detail and the scattering of the survivors to the far ends of the earth -- in this case Cuba, Minneapolis, and finally the frozen wastes of North Dakota in winter. Faith AKIN (42) establishedß his Credentials with the Film "Against the Wall" depicting friction between Turks and Kurds in Hamburg which won the Golden Bear Top Prize at Berlin in 2004. Since then he has continued to address controversial issues in his films with characteristic boldness. THE CUT opens in the home of the peaceful Armenian Manoogian family but soon Turkish soldiers burst in, Gestapo style, and cart all the men off for "investigation" as the rest of the family cowers in terror. Next we see the men outside doing forced labor chopping rocks but soon they are put up against a rock wall to be executed. The Turkish commander orders his men to slash their throats rather than waste precious bullets on the worthless Armenian prisoners. All are then brutally slashed to death but one young man, Nazareth Manoogian, whose neck wounds were not fatal manages to survive. (Tarah Rahim, French actor of Algerian descent!) -- however the injury has left him unable to speak -- mute. He then proceeds to turn in a fantastic performance with hardly any dialog -- only a few words of strangled Armenian late in the film. Most of the dialog if the film is however spoken in Turkish western Armenian by native Armenian actors with some Spanish in the Cuban sequence. Found half dead with partially slashed throat and rescued by a kindly Turkish man Nazaret escapes to a neighboring country and some years later learns that his twin daughters have survived and are alive, last heard from in Cuba. He works his way laboriously over to Cuba but his daughters are no longer there ~ last destination allegedly Minneapolis on the American mainland. Again the trail is cold as they have somehow moved on to rural North Dakota. Himself half frozen as he drags himself across the snowy wastes he finally comes, almost miraculously, upon the surviving daughter now full grown. Tearful reunion in a truly remote corner of the Armenian Diaspora. This grueling international road movie is based on a fiction novel but points a non-compromising finger at the grim historical reality of Turkish ethnic cleansers and genocide perpetrators, while also addressing the indomitable Armenian will to survive no matter how widely dispersed. Overall, a gripping drama as well as a compact lesson in Armenian Genocide and Diaspora studies. Aside from that a very interesting film with a towering performance by non-Armenian actor Tahar Rahim in the central nearly silent role of an Armenian holocaust survivor. Most exceptional that it is made by a Turkish director. Bravo Faith Akin! NOTE: The title refers to one of the words routinely used by Diaspora Armenians in reference to the Turkish Genocide.

Not a movie for every ones taste, because this movie is quite hard stuff because it's content is about a genocide. In some of the scenes i got goosebumps because of the emotional character of the scenes (especially when Armenians got killed or when the protagonist had to kill his sister in law, when he was angry about "god"). The finding of his child in the 2nd part of the film was a little bit sluggish, but also these sluggish scenes created an atmosphere how hard it was to find his daughters. Like my forerunner said, for my taste it had been a good movie and it is NOT for everyone's taste. If you like Science-Fiction or would like to watch a cuddle movie, don't watch this one.