Genocide film is a moving experience

Written, produced and directed by filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, “The Armenian Genocide” is a well-researched, well paced and rather interesting historical documentary.

The film deals, for the most part, with events that unfolded in Turkey during and just after the first world war.

Although Armenian people had lived in eastern Anatolia for centuries, the overwhelmingly Muslim population had never allowed the Christian Armenians to be truly integrated into Turkish society. Armenians lived under restricted citizenship and were not permitted, among other things, to join the military. When Armenians protested these restrictions at the end of the 19th century, the Turkish government responded with violence and more restrictions.

By 1915, things had begun to further unravel for the Armenians. World War I had broken out and Turkey sided with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Armenian partisans however, aligned themselves with Russia. The Turkish government, in an effort to rid themselves of a “hostile” population within its own borders, issued deportation orders.

For the unfortunate Armenians, the deportation quickly became a death march and later, it further descended into an extermination process, long before the phrase “ethnic cleansing” came into use.

Since that time, the survivors of this nightmare have, through a lengthy Diaspora, established “homelands” in France, Lebanon and in the United States.

As explained in the documentary, Armenians, some 90 years after the fact, are victims of “incomplete grief.” This is because the current Turkish government has steadfastly refused to admit wrongdoing in this sordid affair and, without an admission of guilt, many Armenians find it difficult, even after all these years, to put this issue behind them.

This documentary appears to have been made as an appeal to the public to put pressure on the Turkish government to own up to its role in those bloody days of almost a century ago and because of this, I think it is fair that an audience be made aware that the filmmaker has chosen sides in a sensitive political issue.

Filmmaker Goldberg, through the use of photographs, old newsreels, contemporary newspaper reports and extensive interviews has, however; put together a credible and rather compelling documentary.

At the screening I attended at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, the reaction of the audience to the film was quite vocal. Loud whistling and catcalls followed interviews of Turkish politicians and ordinary citizens when they either denied or minimized Turkish complicity in the Genocide.

The film is being shown on Public Broadcast stations throughout the country and copies on tape and DVD were available in the lobby of the theater after the screening. The film was presented as unrated with a running time of approximately one hour.