One hundred years ago, in the midst of World War I, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire forced the men of Armenia to fight on their front lines and marched the Armenian women and children into the desert to slaughter them. It has been called the first genocide of the twentieth century, the seed that bore the terrible fruit of the Holocaust, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide – the “problem from Hell”, as Samantha Powers called it in her Pulitzer-winning book. Yet, the characterization as “genocide” is controversial. Turkey still officially refuses the label, and Pope Francis made waves when he recently used the word. The centennial of the deadly night is this week, April 24th, and Armenians call the world to remember and acknowledge the event.
Given that background, we would expect a film called 1915 made by Armenian-American filmmakers and actors to recount that tragic story through the eyes of some particular, historical character. But we would be wrong. 1915 is much more Birdman than Schindler’s List, a magical-realist psychodrama about the intersection of stage and life. A theater company, led by an Armenian-American writer-director, is putting on a play about the genocide. But the climax turns on an Armenian woman’s choice to run away with a Turkish soldier, saving herself and leaving her people to die. Because of that plot point, hundreds of Armenians protest the production, accusing the playwright of celebrating a cowardly compromise with a hated oppressor.
Inside on the stage, the actress playing this woman refuses to act out that choice. But, her refusal comes from a different inspiration. Seven years earlier, in that same theater, her baby son had died, and she’s been in a trauma-induced shock of denial ever since. In her fragile mental state, the director –her husband – has hypnotized her so that her character’s choice to go with the Turk somehow equals her choice to let go of her dead baby. She refuses to play the scene because she refuses to move on in her own life.
1915 is a convoluted film, difficult to follow and open to various interpretations, but if you are willing to engage with it, the film rewards you for the effort. The filmmakers effectively maintain an air of mystery and curiosity, meting out clues and revelations as they go. The characters are compelling, and the setting gives just the right mood of foreboding. In the end, the film’s greatest reward is the thought and conversation it provokes. Which means, for one thing, that it provokes memory. An audience that walks away talking about 1915 will also remember 1915.
But what does that memory mean? In the film, the Armenian protesters believe that the play remembers the wrong part of their history. I saw the film in a theater full of Armenian-Americans, at a special showing with a Q&A afterward, and some audience-members voiced a desire for a more Schindler’s List-style film about the genocide. Alongside those two controversies about memory, I was thinking about a third. The film implies a connection between moving on from personal trauma and acknowledging collective tragedy. The actress represents the Armenian people as a whole. She is unwilling to work through her baby’s death, just as they are unwilling to admit that some of their ancestors chose life with Turks over death with Armenians. But is that implied connection valid? Does a people’s corporate identity operate on the same principles as a person’s healing? I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about that, and I appreciate the stimulus that 1915 provides.