SCREAMERS - ARMENIAN GENOCIDE documentary

[Cinemaman]

Screamers

Release Date: December 8, 2006 (LA; NY release: January 19, 2007)
Studio: Maya Releasing
Director: Carla Garapedian
Starring: System of a Down
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 1 hrs. 31 min.
MPAA Rating: R (for disturbing images of genocide and language)
Official Website: Screamersmovie.com
Plot Summary: In "Screamers," Garapedian traces the history of modern-day genocide - and genocide denial – from the fertile "Holy Mountains" of Anatolia to the current atrocities in Darfur. The documentary is as shattering as it is powerful, which includes live performance footage and interviews with System of a Down, the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning rock band, all of whose members are of Armenian descent. The film is laced with seven of the band's songs from "Holy Mountains" to "P.L.U.C.K." to the #1 hit "B.Y.O.B." that illuminate the band's views on political and social issues
Carla Garapedian (the acclaimed director/producer of such documentaries as "Lifting the Veil," and "Children of the Secret State") weaves an intricate tapestry of historical footage, current day interviews of survivors who witnessed the Ottoman Turks genocide against those of Armenian decent in 1915, their relatives, concert footage, and even footage of a confronted Dennis Hastert in the Capital Rotunda! Garapedian's documentary shows without ambivalence that until we truly recognize our past, our history is doomed to repeat itself.

Box Office Numbers
Domestic: $52,034
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=screamers06.htm

Rotten Tomatoes
Critics: 67%
Cream of the Top: 58%
Users: 100%
Average Raiting: 6.1/10
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10007729-screamers/

AICN review
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31528

Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Most documentaries examining world tragedy on the scale of something like the history of genocide in the last century would be safe and content enough to simply gather a group of historians for talking-head interviews, show some stock footage of death camps and atrocities (which there is sickeningly too much of in the world), and criticize world governments for not doing more to stop them while they were in progress (the "world police" designation that the United States often embraces doesn't ever seem to extend to genocide relief). But I have to give points for originality to the new film Screamers for its approach to the subject of genocide by shaping its messages through the music of the rock band System of a Down, whose members are all grandchildren of survivors of the Armenian genocide, considered by most to be the 20th century's first such attempted extermination of an entire people.

I'd certainly heard of System of a Down before this film; they are wildly and globally popular, have sold millions of records and won Grammys, and the lead singer, Serj Tankian, has terrible facial hair. That was the extent of my knowledge of the band before seeing Screamers. And while I still don't think I'd ever buy one of the records, I admire their conviction to this cause and their tenacity when it comes to putting their time and money where their cause leads them. Filmmaker Carla Garapedian (who made the exceptional look at women in Afghanistan Beneath the Veil a few year back) follows the band around on tour and focuses on the songs in their set that address the issue of genocide and related political topics. But I made more of an emotional connection with the footage of band members off stage, in particular the very moving scenes of Tankian visiting his 96-year-old grandfather, one of the only survivors from his village in Turkey.
Screamers does offer up its collection of historians, politicians and intellectuals to offer perspective on why genocides happen and why outside nations take so long to acknowledge their existence in time to stop them. While claims of simply not knowing may be plausible in connection to the Armenian and Jewish genocides, more recent events in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur occurred when technology made it possible follow these slaughters as they were happening (as is evidenced by the abundance of grizzly footage in this film). U.S. presidents in recent history (including Bill Clinton and our current leader) have made declarations of "never again" in reference to genocides, but only after tens of thousands were dead. Perhaps what is more shocking is that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged the Armenian genocide for strictly political reasons. In fact, there's an entire denial movement in Congress. One of Screamers best moments comes when Tankian approaches then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert about a petition delivered to his office for Congress to formally acknowledge the Armenian genocide. And while Hastert does dutifully listen for all of 20 seconds, you've never seen a fat man dance so gracefully.
Screamers is an impressive and inventive work that finds a way to attach human faces (both living and dead) to its subject matter. The recent murder of Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, one of his country's most high-profile ethnic Armenians and target of much hatred for his insistence that his government acknowledge the genocide, drives home the issues put forth in this film more than anything I can think of. The fact that people would still kill each other over denial versus acknowledgment is tragic, and Screamers sets the stage for further, deeper examination of this worldwide hypocrisy.
Capone

 

[Cinemaman]

Armenian Genocide Info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) — also known as the Armenian Holocaust, Great Calamity (Մեծ Եղեռ&#1398 or the Armenian Massacre — refers to the massacres and forcible removals of hundreds of thousands to over a million Armenians, during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.
To date 21 countries, as discussed below, have officially recognized it as genocide.

 

[Cinemaman]

Hrant Dink
(September 15, 1954 - January 19, 2007)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrant_Dink

 

[Cinemaman]

Anybody else?

 

[Hunter Rider]

Looks like like very heavy and depressing stuff

 

[xwolverine2]

thats naaasty