The Promise (15.)
Directed by Terry George.
Starring Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale, Marwan Kenzari, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Rade Serbedzija. 133 mins
The Armenian Genocide is famous for being the one everybody forgot. It's a known unknown; all most people know about it is that they know next to nothing about it. Crimes against humanity don't really register until they have a major film made about them and though there have been other films about it (The Cut, Ararat) this is its film. It deserves a better film but The Promise is the one it's got and it may be enough.
The Promise follows the traditional approach to constructing a narrative about momentous, historic events – its slaps a love triangle over it. In 1915, an Armenian apothecary (Isaacs) arrives in Constantinople to study medicine, just as the Germans are prompting Turkey to pitch in with them in the Great War, and while they're at it take the opportunity to rid themselves of the traitorous infidels, the minority Orthodox Christian Armenians. On hand to report this back to the West is American journalist Bale while Le Bon is the romantic ping pong ball bouncing between them.
Love triangles may be crass contrivances, but they are a really handy way to get around. As the three get ripped apart by the turmoil, their respective stories take in everything: the initial rounding up of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders; the forced labour camps; the mass executions; the forced marches into the Syrian desert; the train carriages packed with prisoners. Nobody wears Nazi uniforms, but otherwise these scenes look just like ones we've seen numerous times in other historical drama. The lack of originality is pointed.
Isaac is actually rather good as a possibly rather weak man forced to find a decency that isn't really his. Bale though doesn't really have any hook on his character and falls back on being very, very, very intense. I guess he does this to make it look like he is more serious than other stars, but it makes him seem very Hollywood bogus, and this is the film's great flaw: it takes itself very seriously to cover up for not having really figured out a proper way to cover the topic.
For example, the title. The Promise is a very dull title, one that your eyes will glide over in a list of potential films to watch, even if Christian Bale is in it. So you assume that this promise must be at the centre of the drama, that it will be made at an important point in the first act and, after much struggle and endurance, will be kept (or broken) somewhere near the end. But actually the promise is almost incidental to the plot. It's fine to try and make a David Lean style historical epic but you really need to have a David Lean style budget for it*, not have characters living in an opulent Constantinople mansion, overlooking a CGI rendering of the Bosporus. You'd also need a romance that seems based on passion rather than narrative convenience.
The Promise isn't the film it should be, but maybe it is good enough. The film was a passion project for producer Kirk Kerkorian the late Armenian billionaire who shaped Las Vegas and it gets the message out. The screening I was attended was filled with people of distinction and merit: eminent historians and NGO workers who organised relief work in Syria, the kind of people who will inquire what it is that you do and will very convincingly hide their disappointment when you reveal that it is nothing of any importance. They all adored the film and were very moved by it. The young girl next to me though made little hand gestures of annoyance at the script's implausible romantic contrivances. I was with her but what could we do: the rest of the audience outranked us.
Flawed films can still have power and in its second hour the flow of events summon up audience engagement. The film is timely as it's full of uncomfortable contemporary parallels – being marched to Aleppo, refugees dying at sea or gathering on mountain tops. It has something to say to us, though I wonder what. How would this film would have been greeted if it had been released prior to the referendum? With its tale of Turkish Muslim massacring Christians and the perilous and fragile nature of multicultural societies this moral film about tolerance could easily have been taken up by UKIP.
* Actually, The Promise is supposed to have cost around $90 million, which isn't Lean money, but is still a pretty enough penny.
Directed by Terry George.
Starring Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale, Marwan Kenzari, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Rade Serbedzija. 133 mins
The Armenian Genocide is famous for being the one everybody forgot. It's a known unknown; all most people know about it is that they know next to nothing about it. Crimes against humanity don't really register until they have a major film made about them and though there have been other films about it (The Cut, Ararat) this is its film. It deserves a better film but The Promise is the one it's got and it may be enough.
The Promise follows the traditional approach to constructing a narrative about momentous, historic events – its slaps a love triangle over it. In 1915, an Armenian apothecary (Isaacs) arrives in Constantinople to study medicine, just as the Germans are prompting Turkey to pitch in with them in the Great War, and while they're at it take the opportunity to rid themselves of the traitorous infidels, the minority Orthodox Christian Armenians. On hand to report this back to the West is American journalist Bale while Le Bon is the romantic ping pong ball bouncing between them.
Love triangles may be crass contrivances, but they are a really handy way to get around. As the three get ripped apart by the turmoil, their respective stories take in everything: the initial rounding up of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders; the forced labour camps; the mass executions; the forced marches into the Syrian desert; the train carriages packed with prisoners. Nobody wears Nazi uniforms, but otherwise these scenes look just like ones we've seen numerous times in other historical drama. The lack of originality is pointed.
Isaac is actually rather good as a possibly rather weak man forced to find a decency that isn't really his. Bale though doesn't really have any hook on his character and falls back on being very, very, very intense. I guess he does this to make it look like he is more serious than other stars, but it makes him seem very Hollywood bogus, and this is the film's great flaw: it takes itself very seriously to cover up for not having really figured out a proper way to cover the topic.
For example, the title. The Promise is a very dull title, one that your eyes will glide over in a list of potential films to watch, even if Christian Bale is in it. So you assume that this promise must be at the centre of the drama, that it will be made at an important point in the first act and, after much struggle and endurance, will be kept (or broken) somewhere near the end. But actually the promise is almost incidental to the plot. It's fine to try and make a David Lean style historical epic but you really need to have a David Lean style budget for it*, not have characters living in an opulent Constantinople mansion, overlooking a CGI rendering of the Bosporus. You'd also need a romance that seems based on passion rather than narrative convenience.
The Promise isn't the film it should be, but maybe it is good enough. The film was a passion project for producer Kirk Kerkorian the late Armenian billionaire who shaped Las Vegas and it gets the message out. The screening I was attended was filled with people of distinction and merit: eminent historians and NGO workers who organised relief work in Syria, the kind of people who will inquire what it is that you do and will very convincingly hide their disappointment when you reveal that it is nothing of any importance. They all adored the film and were very moved by it. The young girl next to me though made little hand gestures of annoyance at the script's implausible romantic contrivances. I was with her but what could we do: the rest of the audience outranked us.
Flawed films can still have power and in its second hour the flow of events summon up audience engagement. The film is timely as it's full of uncomfortable contemporary parallels – being marched to Aleppo, refugees dying at sea or gathering on mountain tops. It has something to say to us, though I wonder what. How would this film would have been greeted if it had been released prior to the referendum? With its tale of Turkish Muslim massacring Christians and the perilous and fragile nature of multicultural societies this moral film about tolerance could easily have been taken up by UKIP.
* Actually, The Promise is supposed to have cost around $90 million, which isn't Lean money, but is still a pretty enough penny.
