The National Cinema Center of Armenia will present Hrach Keshishyan’s “Garegin Nzhdeh” in Cannes, along with other movies. Armenia will also participate in this year’s Cannes Film Festival that will take place on May 15-26 and in the Film Market that will be organized within its framework. www.aravot.am inquired of Artsvi Bakhchinyan, a movie critic and the Vice-President of the Armenian Association of Movie Critics and Movie Journalists, what he thought of the fact that Armenia would also present “Garegin Nzhdeh,” which even Armenians didn’t think highly of, despite its big budget, in Cannes. “When they show ‘Garegin Nzgdeh’ in Syunik, for example, lay a red carpet and show a crying Nzhdeh to the people and make them cry as a result of such cheap effects, you think, ‘It’s OK, we are provincials, we show our provincial taste and mentality in the provinces.’ However, appearing at no less than the Cannes Film Festival with such a picture means to overestimate one’s own abilities too much. It is just shameful. It doesn’t matter that its budget is $7 million. Work has been done, but a move that is, to put it mildly, a disgrace from the artistic and historical perspectives cannot be the face of the Armenian movie,” Bakhchinyan said. Our interlocutor will not be surprised, if that movie gets some local award in the short run and says: “It has happened in the territory of Armenia, now they have to exaggerate, praise, a few intellectuals and art critics have to express a high opinion to curry favor with the rich men who financed the movie, but the value of the movie will not increase because of that. I think that one just has to be smart enough not to show oneself to the world through such pictures. Even the ordinary Armenian viewer who doesn’t know the criteria of great movies was basically not satisfied with that movie. Many tearstained eyes testify to that, but many sleeping viewers in the hall don’t. Chulpan Khamatova’s name alone is not a guarantee that this movie has a right to be shown at an international festival. By the way, under the Armenian conditions, in case of a professional approach, one could have achieved satisfactory results for the money that has been spent on ‘Garegin Nzhdeh’ to shoot such a movie, and it would have allowed us to show ourselves to the world with a clear conscience. And what we have is just awful.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
