Calendar (1993)

Must See Movie...

Deeper than the descriptions

Absolutely Fantastic

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I watched a phenomenal Armenian film by Atom Egoyan from 1993. Great movie with a wonderful presentation of Armenian churches, and nature. Cameraman goes with his wife (Armenian) to take pictures for the calendar, on which are the Armenian churches. They take a guide, who tells them about the history of these cultural sites. His wife is also a translator. The film is interwoven with shooting staff, and current times when the photographer is thinking about his life. He is trying to establish a relationship with many women, and takes them to dinner . It's always another one. The most interesting shots in the film are the scenes which are constantly appears. The same romantic dinner, scenes starts with a bottle of wine ,and her question, can I use the phone ? Each of them do the same, called their lover with whom they talk for hours, until he remembers his life and trying something to write about it. The film impressed me with its concept.

There are moments in the film of sheer visual brilliance and even a fantastic narrative, though I doubt anyone could ever deny Atom Egoyan is a visually haunting artist. Between the various ruins and moments of real time captured on the trip making the film you see a true landscape, not only of the area, but of its people and what makes them who and what they are.The problem is that with all that greatness are long moments of unneeded scenes or derivative exposition that remove the warm touching moments and at times just bore the ever loving crap out of you. Mind you I'm not anti art or art-esque films, it's just that these didn't really add a magical moment or create an air of mystery to the overall story or film.I feel like the best part of the film was the Armenian man's story. The added problem here is that you only ever hear his stories second hand via the female translator, and they lack the dramatic impact he has when telling them, only you can't understand his words because there are no subtitles.The 5 rating was mainly I just felt like everything good he captured he lost in being a tad pretentious.

It continues to amaze how gullible the viewers are with this film. When something is as bleak, tedious, pointless, and indecipherable as this, that does not signify that it is good. Rather, it signifies that it is bad. This is a basic point that I think many in the artistic community fail to perceive, intentionally, so to protect their own careers, which are often based on telling the public that there is more to film than meets the eye. Sorry, but there isn't, and that's the point.I didn't fall asleep during this one, but it was so boring that I found myself not even looking at the screen for minutes at a time, which is saying something since there isn't much else to look at. It didn't matter. Most of the time, the characters were speaking in a foreign language, with no subtitles. Their speech was unimportant. They never did anything particularly interesting, and the cinematography was horrible, so it wasn't even worth looking at. As a curiosity in an "anti-film" designed to antagonize the viewer, I suppose this succeeded, but as a film it is a failure. It has its good points (which is how it earned a 5 from me) but they aren't worth detailing since there are many here happy to sing the praises of this work.I've seen summaries of the film that indicate that women invited to eat at the photographer's place were in fact escorts. I saw or heard no evidence of that in the film. Maybe they revealed that in a language I do not speak. I have no intention of sitting through this again to find out what I missed.

It is clear to me that I appreciated this film much more than many who have written so I am moved for the first time to add my voice to this wonderful site-I found the juxtaposition of the photography trip in Armenia with the sequential interviewing back in Canada to be a structural choice that kept my interest, as was the ongoing opportunity to compare the nature of the detached, linear and increasingly controlling photographer (played by Egoyan himself) with the developing flow and connected communication going on between the translator who is blossoming (Arsinee Khanjian, Egoyan's real and cinematic wife) and the self assured yet relaxed driver (Ashot Adamyan). His later decision to foster a child remotely rather than enter into the messiness of actually raising one of his own with his wife also reflects aptly the polarity between his wife and himself.Viewing the Armenian sites as they are being photographed and then as photographs on the finished calendar as time passes was likewise a satisfying editing choice as far as I'm concerned.The slow pace of life in Armenia, with its evocative landscapes and holy sites as well as contact with the group of local men who appear to be sharing in music making just for the primal joy of it reveals some of what the translator is being touched by, all that is apparently escaping her husband even as he sees the effect it is obviously having on her.I found myself increasingly pulled into the film as it went on, which may say something about my own penchant for beautiful and remote places as opposed to the busyness and business of more ordinary Western life.