An uncompromising look at the horrors of the Armenian genocide
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 2, 2009
By Michael Janusonis <letters@projo.com>
Journal Arts Writer
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani of The Lark Farm.
AP / HENNY RAY ABRAMS
The 13th Rhode Island International Film Festival officially begins its six-day run Tuesday night with a gala at the Providence Performing Arts Center, followed by a series of short films on the giant screen. But it will actually kick off Monday with a couple of special screenings: a 10 a.m. showing of Monsters Vs. Aliens 3-D at Providence Place Cinemas and a 6:30 p.m. screening at the Columbus Theater of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s 2007 historical epic The Lark Farm.
Despite its bucolic name, The Lark Farm is an uncompromising look at the horrors of the Armenian genocide launched by the Turks in 1915, when World War I was going badly for them. The massacre was carried out amidst fears that the substantial Christian Armenian population, who had always been second-class citizens in the Muslim Ottoman Empire, was going to join the Russians who were fighting the Turks in the war.
During the genocide, which began in 1915, many Armenian men were arrested and killed. The women and children were deported to a desert region near the Syrian border, though many of them perished during the forced marches. In the end, it is estimated that between 1 million and 1.5 million Armenians died in this holocaust. Unnervingly, their story parallels events that began two decades later in Germany when the Nazis attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
Trying to tell such a broad-based story is a daunting undertaking, except perhaps as a documentary. But the writing-directing Tavianis, who are in their late 70s and whose output over the decades includes the groundbreaking Padre Padrone and Night of the Shooting Stars, made this history very personal by focusing on one family as it struggled to survive in an increasingly bleak and trying situation.
The Lark Farm revolves around the lives of the prosperous Avankian family, who live in a fine house in the city and have recently restored the big house at their homestead in the countryside, Lark Farm, to its former ornate grandeur. But the war has broken out, threatening the already wobbly Ottoman Empire, and the Avankians are hearing inklings that things will not go well for the Armenians.
When the family patriarch dies at the start of the film, he warns with his dying breath to flee, but no one pays heed. His son, Aram (Tcheky Karyo), a wealthy businessman, believes things will pretty much continue as they always have with just a few rough spots. His beatific wife, Armineh (Arsinee Khanjian), puts up a brave front, but is not so convinced. His sister, the headstrong Nunik (Paz Vega), has fallen in love with a Turkish officer (Alessandro Preziosi), who plots to leave the army and flee with her across the border because he has heard rumors that bad things might come. “There’s no hope for us here. I’m a Turk and you’re Armenian,” he tells Nunik.
It seems like a set-up for what will be a Romeo-Juliet romance, but The Lark Farm soon grows much darker even than that classic tale. Soon the resentment toward the Armenians, who are seen by some Turks as a sort of fifth column of traitors and spies, spirals out of control. Plans are afoot to arrest the Armenian leaders quietly, including Aram. But things quickly get out of hand when a hot-headed officer gets involved and events slip away from the control of the colonel who is in charge of this region. A decent man who has befriended the Armenians, he tries to prevent the killing, but is too late.
The attack on the Avankians and their neighbors, who have arrived at Lark Farm in hopes of finding refuge from the Turks, is horrific and bloody. It sets the tone for the terrors that will follow, which will see most of the men murdered and the women sent off on a long march toward the desert with little food to sustain them. In desperation, some of them turn to selling sexual favors for a loaf of bread. Others are killed outright or left to die at the side of the road. The Lark Farm becomes a study in human cruelty.
Cinematically, it’s powerful and yet that power is muted somewhat by the melodramatic way events unfold on screen. The Armenians are pictured as innocents and saints; most Turks as soulless monsters. Some scenes and characters are overplayed. At one point, a Turkish soldier who has arrived at the Avankian manse during their dinner, covetously looks at a tureen that’s filled with soup, spilling its contents on the table and making a grab for the tureen with greed in his eyes. There are many such scenes that lack subtlety.
Nevertheless, the plight of the Avankians, whose brother in Italy desperately attempts to raise money to get them out of Turkey, is emotionally riveting. It expands to include the tale of a Muslim beggar who tries to help the family, which has always been good to him, hatching an elaborate rescue plan. It goes back to focus on Nunik who finds herself in a camp where she falls in love with another Turkish soldier and is involved in a selfless act to save what’s left of her family. Vega gives a poignant performance as Nunik, who has nowhere left to turn. She puts a face on the struggles of the Armenian people during this dark period.
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