Tom Dooley
Tahir Rahim ('A Prophet') stars as Nazarat an Armenian artisan in the town of Mardin. World War I is raging and the Ottoman Turks have thrown in their lot with the forces of Germany and her allies. In Turkey a decision is made to do something about the Christian Armenians. Nazarat is rounded up and forced to work as slave labour – leaving his wife and twin daughters alone to their fate.What befalls him is horrific and what befell the Armenians was a war crime and a crime against humanity. In the aftermath of his travails Nazarat hears that his daughters have survived the blood bath, he then sets out to find them and the majority of the film is taken up with his search.Now this is a fairly good effort, it is a bit shameless at tugging on the heart strings though. It was a wide European co-production and that is reflected in the languages being used. The main language though is English, which is used by most of the players here. That may be why it has faced criticism of some of the acting. That criticism is that some of it was a bit hammy or wooden. It is harder to act in a non native tongue so a lot of the nuances are lost. Rahim is as ever excellent and believable and as a central character to the film he manages to hold it all together very well. There are some plot holes and I could not find if this was based on an actual real story. However, it is fairly engaging and with a run time of around two hours managed to keep me gripped for the most part hence my rating.
Ender Yemenicioglu
I should say Faith Akin is currently one of the most important directors from Germany of Turkish descent. He brought a fresh spirit to German and Turkish film scene. He shows also great courage with the theme Armenian Genocide. He explains a personal story, but also takes a step to the Armenians from Turkish side, and try to say "we understand your suffering." Regrettably that is enough to be excommunicated from Turkish community, because it is still a taboo to talk about Armenian problem in such a way. It is a pity that he missed such a great chance to create a good film with his humanistic intentions. Most of the scenes feel like staged, acting is mostly average. The main problem with the movie is the atmosphere. When I see a good movie, I forget that it is a movie and create an emotional connection with the characters. That is the most important thing for me as I evaluate a film. And it lacked completely for me. It could be the worst cinematographic work of Faith Akin till now. Still deserves above average from me.
Geoffrey Haig
This film tackles a topic of huge dramatic potential, and it is certainly a bold move for a director with Turkish roots to take this task on, given the pathological aversion of the Turkish authorities to any reference to the Armenian genocide. Unfortunately, in my view the film fails almost entirely as a film, both technically and in terms of character development/dialog. Furthermore, it avoids really facing the issue of the genocide itself, the historical background and the sheer scale of the killings. The genocide involved hundreds of thousands of people; the film contains scenes in the desert involving a tiny group of Armenian men haplessly shifting a few rocks backwards and forwards, guarded by a few Ottoman troops - the whole scene works more like a cheaply-produced pantomime set; to portray the scale of the actual events you really need epic cinematography, which apparently the budget just wasn't up to. Then there is the totally one-dimensional plot, a series of fairly arbitrary stages on a journey, with no obvious motivations or connections for choice of scenes (why Cuba, Minneapolis ...?), no development of real relationships between any of the characters, and a final denouement that can only be termed anti-climactic. We also find numerous clichés - the barbaric Kurds (rapists), the wily Bedouin (keeping helpless Christian women captive), the saintly soap-maker - who, despite being the owner of a sizable factory, still wanders around the desert alone with his donkey and his cart, the happy Armenian tradesman and his family torn apart by the genocide etc etc. The main blessing of the film for me was that the lead character loses his voice early on in the film (another totally implausible twist of the plot), which spares us yet more of the generally flat dialogs.
bodobodoARM
Despite some things that could have been made better or, lets say, different, it was a very good film. And it had an optimistic touch to it: A brave mans journey throughout the continents to seek his lost daughters. And really no one would want to watch a 2 hour snuff film only describing the genocide, for that you can watch documentaries about it.The scene in the movie theater with the Chaplin film running was very powerful. That alone was worth 10/10 for me. It shows the huge impact that moving pictures have on us. Movies can help to deal with real things in the world and thats what Akin has done with his film about the genocide.For Turks "The Cut" holds the message, that no one needs be afraid of their history, since even some Turks helped Armenians during the genocide (not only in this fictional movie). Sidenote: Not only Armenians very targeted with that genocide, that could have been at least referenced in the film.About the ratings in general: I stopped paying attention to ratings at IMDb and other sites some time ago, because they are made by many people and many critics. And....well, most people have a bad taste. At least it doesn't match mine :). There are lots of good series and movies out there apart from for example "The Wire" or "Dr. Strangelove". They just have a bad rating for some reason or are not popular and not hyped.
AD
