paul chaderjian

Paul Chaderjian March 18, 2003   Sayat Nova                         Sergei Paradjanov's "Sayat Nova" is more than a motion picture bringing to life images from historical Armenian culture, it is a code that holds the key to unraveling the ancient reality of a people.                         Philosopher and writer Carl Jung believed that symbols were how the universe or god communicated to man. Jung wrote that the symbols were communicated to man's consciousness through dreams. Within that context, Paradjanov captured symbols of a people on film, so that he would eternally communicate that which represented Armenians to generations to come.             While the conscious mind of the viewer may attach differen...

Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan cannot help but continue to make movies that address the themes of loss and the consequences of trauma, because so much of his personal history is dictated by the loss his grandparents' generation experienced during the Armenian Genocide. The person that he is and the art that he creates cannot help but be a reaction for one of the greatest traumas suffered and yet to be collectively addressed by 20th and 21st century civilization. While most critics and film fans believe that Egoyan's "Ararat" was his first film about the Armenian Genocide, a careful study of Egoyan's previous feature films will demonstrate that all his films address the issue of how one or how a group of people react and respond to loss. The theme of the trauma of loss, people's reaction to loss and the relationship of the people dealing with loss and trauma are what define Egoyan's films and screenplays. In his first feature, "Next ...