Sins are lived twice and men are mirrors in The Place Beyond The Pines

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Sins are lived twice and men act as mirrors of each other, regardless of how disparate their histories and futures. They atone of their transgressions in mere glances. This isn’t just a movie, a film, or simply a script – this is real life. As sloppy, unforgiving and secretive as a hard life lived breathlessly. I’m reminded of the Bible verse, “And the sins of the father, shall be revisited upon their sons.” You’ve never seen more potent and visceral acting coming from Ryan Gosling as Luke Glanton or Bradley Cooper as Avery Cross. Eva Mendes is so earthy and true to the young mother stressed to her soul, with a dozen fears and worries piling up, her facial expressions are words in themselves. No matter how many times Ray Liotta has played the classic tough-guy persona of questionable ethics, it always comes across as brand new. That’s a gift.

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES (co-written & directed by Derek Cianfrance from BLUE VALENTINE) plays out in a mini-Detroit, Schenectady, New York. Schenectady means ‘the place beyond the pines’ in Iroquois. And it acts as the perfect place where desperation and generations of men and boys are confronted with the actions of their fore bearers. No one is born free of sin or transgression. We carry the past against our will. Our names are enough to imprison us. We might try to escape like Luke, but we soon learn, “If you ride like lightning, you’ll crash like thunder.” I have come to understand, as the child of a fatherless upbringing, that the absence (and presence) of our fathers will perturb us in more ways than we are willing to admit. We are a part of a legacy, both good and bad, and in between. One decision on the part of those before us can change everything.

Luke Glanton is a stunt motorcycle driver with a traveling circus. He rides inside a spherical cage named The Globe of Death at breakneck speeds with five others, to riotous applause. To add to the authenticity of these characters, Gosling did his own stunts, along with Cooper. Gosling was trained by Rick Miller (“Every time Batman gets on a motorcycle, that’s Rick Miller”). His gig, as Luke and The Heartthrobs, is always on the go and when we meet Luke, we see he likes it that way, until Romina (Eva Mendes) re-appears in his life. Romina hasn’t told him their one night stands left her pregnant and a single mother to a chubby baby named Jason, with deep-blue eyes like his father. She’s moved on now with another man. He’s desperate to take care of his responsibility and not be anything like his own father. Luke is tattoo-addled and never wears his shirt right side in. He’s turned inside out, wearing his heart on his sleeve, sensitive to the touch, but his deceiving looks of a hard shell or cactus prickles are only a protective barrier. He’s looking to belong, to be loved in return. To feel what it’s like to do right by his progeny. But he ends up just like he hoped he wouldn’t – in trouble and alone.

This film is bubbling over with 1990s aesthetics like cut-off jean shorts, bleach blonde hair, ”wife beaters”, Metallica t-shirts, plastic hair claws and scrunchies, tie-dye, neon, track suit jackets, tapered jeans and white sneakers – THE PINES lets you return to the past, almost in act of recognition and remembrance. It’s refreshing in a sea of sugary blockbusters you’ll soon forget, with an assemble of actors often praised more for their looks and sex-appeal and not their talent, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES allows us to reach beyond what we think we know and embrace the shadows of an eery forest. In THE PINES we see no pure evil, bad intentions or unselfish goodness from the characters. We see men and boys mirroring each other; a “good” man and a “bad” man can be identical.

A dark triad reveals itself in rookie policeman Avery Cross, who we meet mid-way in the film. He’s naive, pragmatic but overpowered by Machiavellian desires. Avery is at an impasse of truth and denial, his whole life is unraveling. He’s also struggling with his morality and his connections to the man he’s supposed to have nothing but animosity towards. He can see bits of himself in Luke. Their sons are even the same age. Cooper is always a genius as a jock or “one of the boy’s club” but he’s met his match with Gosling as a balancer of unchecked privilege and a conscious awakening of corruption at his precinct, which he does, as any well-groomed popular kid would, use to his advantage.

Watching THE PINES has conjured up my reactions to Gosling’s other stellar work in DRIVE, BLUE VALENTINE and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. Gosling has so much cinema and humanity left in him. I hope his plans of retirement are a hoax.

The complexities of the male identity find a spotlight in THE PINES. The place of responsibility, defiance of authority, violence, self-reliance, insecurity, fatherhood, shirking fear, privilege, abandonment, loyalty, lies and independence make a second entrance in the lives of Luke’s son, Jason (Dane DeHaan, who reminds me of a young Leonardo DiCaprio), and Avery’s son, AJ, (Emory Cohen). They act as incarnations of their respective fathers, but with a whole new set of priorities and unflinching desires.

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES is a collection of outcasts destined to be together.

Secrets are dangerous things in The Company You Keep

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Jim Grant (Robert Redford) on the run. Image via Sony Pictures Classics.

Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep” is (almost) a hippie-modern retelling of “Les Misérables” in the format of “All The Presidents Men”. Redford is both actor and director for the first time since his 2007 film “Lions for Lambs.” ”The Company You Keep” (to open in theaters on April 12, 2013) re-spins the tale, by way of Neil Gordon’s novel of the same name, of the infamous Weather Underground, a radical-left movement of the 1960 & 1970s.

In the 1970s, in the thicket of the Vietnam war, students and young people took to the streets of the United States, France, China, Angola, and beyond, with fervor unseen before. Police and rioters clashed and the iron hands of government attempted to obliterate their vigilante-style protesting. They felt lied to and confused, finally breaking free from the chains of history and familial obligations, a new era of irreverence was ushered in. Questioning all that you’d been spoon-fed to date was de rigueur. Lines were blurred. Anarchy became reasonable method of dissent, to some.

The Weather Underground directed by ”Weathermen” (as their adherents were called), Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, among others, committed varying acts of “terrorism” that led them to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List in the 1970s.

Jim Grant (Redford) is a lawyer with a soft spot for charity cases and pro-bono work. His wife has died a year ago and he’s raising his 11-year-old daughter, Izzy (Jackie Evancho) alone. An idealistic and scrappy journalist, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), with a sly smile and friends in high places, has just been given a project from his editor on the recent arrest in Upstate New York of an ex-Weathermen, Sharon Solarz. He doggedly pursues every lead and ends up on the phone with Grant, who knows far more than he lets on. This evasiveness only makes him more persistent.

Ray Fuller (Stanley Tucci) & Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) @ The Albany Sun Times. Image via Sony Pictures Classics.

Jim Grant is like Jean Valjean, trying to right a wrong of his past and exonerate himself. Ben Shepard is Inspector Javert, whose passion for justice blinds him from the grey snuggled in between the black and white histories we wish to forget.

Redford’s characterization of the journalist, Shepard, is questionable in some parts but the scenes of a be-speckled La Beouf flipping through micro-fiche, his chewed up pens and paper files using traditional journalistic sleuthing skills are charmingly reminiscent of the hungry reporters, Woodward & Bernstein, in Redford’s own “All The Presidents Men”. Shepard’s Google searching, Mac e-mail address & old, beat-up Dell laptop remind you that it is 2013.

Shepard is out for the truth, no matter what. When Shepard discovers who Grant is, he is desperate for the story. Grant heads to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, reconnecting with his past, in ways he had hoped he would never have to. But still had planned for, just in case … like any shrewd Weathermen.

Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie of Doctor Zhivago fame) is living the serene life in Big Sur with her lover, Mac McLeod (Sam Elliot), only to be catapulted from her hiding perch. She’s the only ticket to safety for Grant, but she’s a phantom with no desire to turn herself in to the law and has no repentance for her past lives. Among the group, she’s the most elusive. Grant’s left hopping from friend to friend in his efforts to reconnect. Most want nothing to do with him, but are willing to help, because at one time they were, after all, “brothers” in the movement.

“The Company You Keep” renames it’s main protagonists and avoids too much direct usage of the history revolving around the people we all know they are referring to: Bernadine Dohrn & Bill Ayers. The films main critics were turned off of the film when Redford said he didn’t feel the need to meet any of the original Weathermen to make this film. He did, however, meet Dohrn & Ayer’s son, Zayd.

And the film doesn’t really need Dohrn or Ayers to make it believable. It doesn’t need special effects or any pomp and circumstance of a blockbuster – indeed, “The Company You Keep” despite a starstruck casting, is more like an independent film that takes to task the most powerful country that ever warred, the United States, without the punch of a revenge-fantasy or political agendas or disillusioned youth tossing fire bombs or even street protests. It’s critique, in it’s own underestimated way, is empathetic, not biting. Where “The Company You Keep” loses me is in how mellow it is and how confusing the culpability of it’s main characters is. Redford said it’s not easy for him to maintain two roles at once, of artist or actor and visionary or director – and this is evident in “The Company You Keep.”

Ex-Weathermen Donal Fitzgerald (Nick Nolte) gives up his freedom. Image via Sony Pictures Classics.

The film has a cast that won’t quit and Sundance-pastoral imagery as a backdrop for personal conflict and choice and the political secrets that unravel both ”good” and ”bad” intentions in every character – in Redford’s cinema there is no 100% good, no 100% bad. Only Redford can deliver such lines, fair and balanced, leaving out the gratuitous admonishment but peppering in the red-haired grandfather wisdoms of a life lived with some regret. Where the film falters, ominous organ music plays so you know you are supposed to be in suspense.

But this film has reminded me of three things: it can be hard to vilify old people, even “terrorism” can be excused if explained by the right person, and as Grant says, “Secrets are dangerous things, Ben.”

Damsels in Distress, L.A. Gangsters & Dick Tracy Redux.

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Films based on books based on “real” people’s lives are often not an easy sell.

Ruben Fleischer’s GANGSTER SQUAD, based on Tales from the Gangster Squad by journalist Paul Lieberman, plays all the parts expected. It’s Tommy guns, Studebaker shoot-outs, furs and flash bulbs, the overdone trope of Jessica Rabbit damsels in distress, blockbuster gangsters, male bimbos, quaint ’40s imagery of La-La Land and doltish line delivery with a questionable casting selection.

GANGSTER SQUAD follows a rag tag group of law enforcement, led by Josh Brolin’s WWII vet Sgt. John O’Mara, on a mission to eradicate the city of the organized crime element that has tightened a noose around the public. They’ve all been somehow affected by the Chicago gangsters & their enemies that have moved in on the West Coast and exacted control over all portions of society. O’Mara convinces his wife, Connie (The Killing’s Mireille Enos), to help him complete his ‘gangster squad’ to hunt down the criminals, who’ve wielded their will with impunity. Enos, alongside Brolin, brings her even-tempered demeanor that is one of the only performances of merit.

The ‘squad’ is made up of several actors you’ve never seen on the same screen at once, which makes for an initially intriguing surprise. Tough, vice-cop, Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), the brains behind the operation, Conway Keeler (played by a thinner, more mature-looking, authentic & believable Giovanni Ribisi), cowboy with a cool-hand, Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) and his Mexican sidekick & seemingly butt of many a joke, Navidad Ramirez (Michael Peña) is begrudgingly accepted into the circle and Sgt. Jerry Wooters, played by Ryan Gosling who is, as usual, bimbo-ish and street-smart, simultaneously.

I should note that I eat up mafioso films likes its nobody’s business. I’ve seen them all from the old Italian capers to the Americana classics to the new wave, comedic & beyond. I appreciate a great car chase, shoot-out & revenge fantasy, like so many others. And this film, on the surface, seems to accomplish all of it. But its so unbelievable and grandiose, gratuitous violence and ridiculousness – in large part due to Sean Penn’s overacting and gargantuan nose piece that commands more attention than his ranting and raving, sadistic ex-boxer, Jewish-American gangster, Mickey Cohen – that the explosiveness fizzles out shortly after the characters have introduced themselves. Emma Stone’s vampy addition was ill fitting and awkward. While she certainly has a strong hold on the teen-queen genre of movies, and she does a great job as the giddy girl-next-door, her place in GANGSTER SQUAD was un-needed and airy, too light to matter to the script. Stone, and Penn, for that matter, seemed more like comedic-relief and cartoon stereotypes than plausible characters.

GANGSTER SQUAD, originally meant for release in late 2012, was held back and some scenes re-shot after the cinema shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Warner Brothers thought the planned Mann’s Chinese Theatre shoot-out scenes would be too much for audiences, and rightly so. Even with the delay, and re-shooting, GANGSTER SQUAD was in need of substance and a true blue story of what these men were really like – the big name ticket certainly won’t save it. We’ve already seen DICK TRACY and THE UNTOUCHABLES. Tell us a new story. I know it’s there.

The grand-daughter of real-life Sgt. John O’Mara said the film was not entirely authentic to her grandfathers legacy and the events that unraveled on screen were fictitious fodder.

You flew!

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I have wandered through the vastness of your entire life

just by touching your forearm as we drive

I have sneezed you into a victorious alignment

with the highest of stars

I saw you before you saw yourself

I learned of your movement

and the palpitations you incurred minutes

before your release

I wanted to understand your language

so I could hold your lightness in my palms

and sing to the same symphony

but instead I watched you fall from my inner place

and become of the air

shunning the ground as a means of transport

or maybe out of defiance

You flew!

Fluttering atop your tongue

Words foreign to my ears

Words that circled your lips like pennies as alms

I emptied your pains from this carousel of existence

I watched you form

Unsung melodies

that ricocheted

from your heart

to my

own

I flew!

Zero Dark Thirty & The Geronimo Quest for UBL

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© Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

© Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

ZERO DARK THIRTY could have been a tragic disaster of film but Kathryn Bigelow wouldn’t let that happen.

The film leads us ominously from a black screen with only sounds and voices of 911 telephone calls on September 11, 2001 to the much maligned quest for and eventual capture-kill of Usama Bin Laden a.k.a Osama Bin Laden (the film simply nicknames him “UBL”).

Jessica Chastain introduces us to Maya, the lesser-known-but-immensly-powerful-and-important woman behind this story or as Maya calls herself – “the motherfucker” that hunted UBL down. Despite Chastain’s many awards and stunning roles as a Mossad agent on a mission for revenge in THE DEBT or as a mother in the midst of family upheavals and existential epiphanies in Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE, this is surely Chastain’s breakout performance.

The film co-stars James Gandalfini (who plays a perfect version of Leon Panetta), Jennifer Ehle, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler and Édgar Ramírez.

Maya, a diminutive, young CIA intelligence agent with no experience in torture or successful capture is recruited to Pakistan to assist a team of agents in the interrogation of al-Qaieda operatives and name-finding, along with the next planned bombings or “terror attacks.” She quickly conforms to holding cells, cloaked prisoners, water-boarding, dog collars, chains, punishment boxes, withholding food and water for names and numbers, blaring loud death metal rock all night as the prisoner is chained to the ceiling, attempting to sleep standing up and various other humiliating fear tactics meant to break the persons psyche. Her initial timidity belies who she is capable of becoming. Sure, much of the violence is related to her by proxy, but her commandeering is still it’s own version of (mental) assault.

Stationed in a covert base overseas, Jessica Chastain plays a member of the elite team of spies and military operatives who secretly devoted themselves to finding Osama Bin Laden in Columbia Pictures' electrifying new thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, ZERO DARK THIRTY. / © Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

Stationed in a covert base overseas, Jessica Chastain plays a member of the elite team of spies and military operatives who secretly devoted themselves to finding Osama Bin Laden in Columbia Pictures’ electrifying new thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, ZERO DARK THIRTY. / © Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

After one of her colleagues is killed in a suicide bombing by a suspect meant to provide information on the whereabouts of UBL, Maya’s ferocious hunger to kill all those involved and UBL, himself, is re-awakened. She becomes obsessed, even when her superiors ignore her leads and ideas. Her tenacity is met with sharp-tongues and a schooling in what goes on in the boardrooms at Langley. ZERO DARK THIRTY, part revenge-porn for U.S. audiences insatiably hungry for justice on screen, part jarring political drama is spell-binding, anyway it’s sliced. The explosions are, dare I say, well-timed, never gratuitous and somewhat cryptic.

Only such a film could captivate a packed, stuffy, hot, filled-to-capacity theatre of people for 157 minutes – most of the time, one could hear a pin drop (or a cricket chirp). It’s hard to tell if ZERO DARK THIRTY is lost on viewers, or if the film simply overwhelmed them, but it surely offers something no one else has given; an ending to the saga that gripped many nations for so long – finding UBL & uncovering the Pakistan he inhabited. It’s a way for “Americans” to have a passive, front-row seat to what occurred in their name, and as a NAVY Seal reports from their stealth fighter jet, “For God and country,” on May 2, 2011 at ‘zero dark thirty’ or ’30 minutes past midnight’ in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

ZERO DARK THIRTY, directed and co-produced by Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison, Mark Boal, has received a lion-share of criticism and questioning. Largely due to scenes of torture. Those that pan it based on those scenes are missing Bigelow’s point, which also happens to be one of anti-tortue. In order to show what occurs in the shadows, she must bring it into the light.

The film, as Bigelow has publicly stated, takes many ideas ingrained in U.S. politics to task but also has heart, empathy and respect for those “ordinary” peoples doing unordinary jobs like executing justice on behalf of thousands and millions. The real-life “Maya” disappeared and went under ”protection” after her mission completed. Chastain never got to meet “Maya.”

The film is at times eerily reminiscent of Robert Redford’s beautiful SPYGAME, Angelina Jolie’s recreation of the Daniel Pearl abduction

Jessica Chastain as Maya. © Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

Jessica Chastain as Maya. © Zero Dark Thirty, 2012, Permission granted for usage by Sony Pictures (SPE).

in Rawalpindi, in A MIGHTY HEART, William Goldman’s ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN or even Bigelow’s own, THE HURT LOCKER. And like THE HURT LOCKER, her characterizations assert the multi-dimensional – visible with such additions like a CIA-head who is a practising Muslim convert, the complete opposite in ‘Islamic lifestyles’ in places like Kuwait or Pakistanis aiding their U.S. guests. Though the film is not intimate with the locals like Jolie’s A MIGHTY HEART or Redford’s SPYGAME, a fair desire to step away from stereotypes is evident. This film carries far more than originally meets the eye.

Storytelling on film with Armine Anda

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Armine Anda stands for press pictures at the Seattle International Film Festival, where she screened JOAN AND THE VOICES for U.S. audiences for the first time. Image courtesy of Armine Anda. No reproduction or usage without consent of author.

She herself looks like a character from the fairytales she chiseles into paper and film.

Diminutive and with expressive almond eyes that belie her age, actress Armine Anda (her stage name) is Joan in the 2012 feature film, JOAN AND THE VOICES.

She met me at a café in Seattle, on another grey sky day, to talk about her film, fairytales, her books, Armenian poetry and cinema, plus, the war and woman who inspired JOAN AND THE VOICES.

Wearing a blood red slicker and black messenger bag slung cross-wise, she smiled a wide, remembering smile as she walked in and ordered a mint tea, before she gushed of her time spent wandering the streets of Seattle during her visit for the Seattle International Film Festival, where she screened JOAN AND THE VOICES. The film, her first feature film as of a producer, had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea in October of 2011 and its European Premiere took place at Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden. It was the Official Selection at the Seattle International Film festival earlier, LET’S CEE Film Festival in Austria and the GOLDEN APRICOT Yerevan International Film Festival.

“I liked the people of Seattle. They are kind, warm and helpful. What I liked about the city most was that the old and new live in harmony. I never could believe that a 100-year old buildings could exist in harmony with 100-floor buildings. Maybe it’s also represents the people of Seattle,” she says.

You can tell from her expressive gaze, she sees things everything as both familiar and brand new.

Her interest in storytelling led her to host a children’s television program called Blium Blium Stories and writing books like Inhabitants of Ankimoor, which recieved the Orange Book Award in 2011, and film production with Hoshkee Film, and global collaborators. Her other works of fiction include Saal Stories and Marzipan Spirit.

BLIUM BLIUM STORIES BY ARMINE ANDA

She is currently working on multiple film projects, most notably, THE ILLUMINATORS, under direction of Canadian Armenian film maker Atom Egoyan (ARARAT, EXOTICA).

Vatinyan’s debut feature, after substantial work in experimental theatre exploring themes of JOAN AND THE VOICES, recreates Joan of Arc (the main inspiration of the picture) and her valiant struggles to rebuild her country and fight, physically and mentally, for justice.

JOAN AND THE VOICES recreates Joan of Arc (the main inspiration of the picture) and her valiant struggles to rebuild her country and fight, physically and mentally, for justice. Armine’s Joan (or Jannan in Armenian) in the film is a vagabond census collector, with haunting sounds and images that follow her on her journey to collect information aimed at helping rebuild a nation from its ashes. Her actions are not logical nor rational, but rarely are the great ones.

The film is particularly special because Armenia only has one or two films a year released to general audiences internationally. Many often go overlooked. But films like 1973’s TGHAMARDIK (The Men), 1966‘s BAREV, YES EM (Hello, That’s Me) and the vast works of Sergei Parajanov do rise to the surface of international film circles. Now, JOAN AND THE VOICES is among them. For Anda, BAREV, YES EM by Frunze Dovlatyan, is the film that has buried itself into her cinematic pursuits. “It’s my most favorite Armenian film,” she writes. But it’s another film that has made a significant imprint on her writing. “THE LORD OF THE RINGS … the book … really surprised me. So much so that I started to write without even thinking about it too much,” she explains.

Anda studied drama at the Yerevan State Institute Of Theatre and Cinematography where she encountered Mikayel Vatinyan, her only other co-star in this dialogue-free film that documents an Armenia, post Nagorno-Karabakh territorial war with neighbour Azerbaijan in the 1990s — an issue that still divides the two ex-Soviet Republics. Despite the brutality of history, war and diaspora created by the survivours of the Armenian Genocide, Anda is spirited and welcoming. She carries history in her the folds of her eyes but she is light and airy.

Anda balances many titles including actress, producer, and writer. She began her career in theatre and television. She worked as an actress in a silent film comedy show called “No-Film” with Vatinyan. Her first role as producer, is the animated film BOJO, where she again collaborated with Vatinyan. Vatinyan has worked in many experimental theatres garnering lead parts and awards that follow performing the works of Bulgakov, Chekhov, Anouilh, and Cervantes. In 2000, he co-founded the theatre “IO” directing the trilogy entitled “IO”, “IOzart”, and “Suitcase.”

When asked what she wishes for Armenia, as a nation, after all that has happened, she responds, “My biggest hope is that people believe in their happiness.”

Messages are hidden everywhere in Joan And The Voices

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Armenia is like a pomegranate. Concealed with a tiny opening at the top. Inside, the many seeds of antiquity. Safely suspended in it’s red flesh, a curiously unstructured structured fruit, a random formation of 613 seeds — a pomegranate is it’s own small land of poetic secrets, like Armenia.

JOAN AND THE VOICES. Official film poster courtesy of Armine Anda, Hoshkee Film Armenia // Copyright 2011it’s red flesh, a curiously unstructured structured fruit, a random formation of 613 seeds — a pomegranate is it’s own small land of poetic secrets, like Armenia.

JOAN AND THE VOICES, the feature debut by director Mikayel Vatinyan, should really be entitled Armenia and Her Voices, a pseudo-silent film. The film wrestles with rhythms and sounds, voices and the grind of an Armenia in the rubble, after the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s. It represents a deep unknowable dark, in the caves and recesses of our minds — memories haunt us eternally. In JOAN AND THE VOICES we are reminded that there is sound and song in all we do. There are messages everywhere.

The film pays close attention to the sound of coal being sifted, grain hitting machinery while it’s grinded, young folk dancers stepping in time, teenage boys playing the kemanche*, children reciting poetry and lines from the Trial of Joan of Arc, birds chirping in the forest, flitting from branch to branch, the sound of digging up treasures beneath the crisp fallen leaves — a hauntingly elegant picture. But with all these sounds — nearly no actual speech or dialogue. There are no created or fantasized characters — Armenia has plenty of real ones — farmers, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, children, students, teachers, artists, and everyday people that encapsulate the viewer. You don’t need to hear the context of each person’s history, joys, jokes, wealth, losses and struggles. You already hear it in their eyes and movement, as the leading actress and co-writer / producer of the film, Armine Anda who plays Joan (Jannan in Armenian), goes about factories, schools, coalmines, villages and towns collecting information and statistics of the people who live there. She is Armenia. But most of all, she is Joan of Arc. Wielding a power, greater than she may be aware of, that she uses to rebuild her broken land after the blood shed and chaos. Even in her confusion, her only fear is that of “betrayal.”

The images are sometimes disorienting and there is not much need for subtitles. Filmed amidst glorious ancient places within Armenia, including Artsakh, Goris and the edge of Ararat, among many other random places along the way. The deafening silence of history creaks through as a recurring image of a man (Mikayel Vatinyan) struggles to get up again, after lying wounded and weak in a bunker or cave, of sorts. Sometimes he hears the sound of heavy boots running in the gravel and rocks, and even the assasination of a man, right after he screams. The wounded man pants for breath, crushes ice blocks to quench his thirst. He’s half nude and caked in layers of mud and dirt, disguising his identity. He never looks up and we never know if he does stand. There are times it is as if he remembers his mother or grandmother soothing his aching body and carefully placing him in a warm bed. He returns to the present, as he drifts asleep covered in the dirt of misery, and cloaks himself with what is left of his jacket and clothing. He is Armenia.

JOAN AND THE VOICES. Postcard image courtesy of Armine Anda, Hoshkee Film Armenia // Copyright 2011

In several stops along her journey, Joan (Jannan) leaves behind remnants of herself: a mirror, for reflection; rosary beads, for meditation. She’s nomadic and constantly going someplace else, but she is never disaffected. She hears Armenia beating within her, like a dhol, the Armenian drum. Fearlessly she battles a fight, the most vicious of all — the one within — of her place in the vestiges of a temporarily incapicitated land.