CoMo No. 15: Armenia (July, 2023)

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Re: CoMo No. 15: Armenia (July, 2023)

Post by movie tickets forger »

side note (of Armenfilm symbolism) opening the second page...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasuntsi_ ... 8statue%29

Sasuntsi Davit is a copper equestrian statue depicting David of Sassoun (Sasuntsi Davit) in Yerevan, Armenia. Erected by Yervand Kochar in 1959, it depicts the protagonist of the Armenian national epic Daredevils of Sassoun.
David of Sassoun is the main hero of Armenia's national epic Daredevils of Sassoun, who drove Arab Egyptian invaders out of Armenia.

As an oral history, it dates from the 8th century.
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AUTUMN SUN (Bagrat Hovhannisyan, 1977) #ArmenCoMo

a viewer of this film spends one day in the Armenian countryside (as if painted by Pieter Breughel Sr)
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following in the footsteps of a strong (outspoken) female character.
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despite her initial (feminist) inclination, the heroine turns (with the approaching sunset) into a rural Ayn Rand.
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or (in other words)
Despite its initial feminist inclinations, Soviet Armenian cinema remained a realm of male-dominated narratives and visions that rarely put women in the driver seat.
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The second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky’s one-time assistant, Bagrat Hovhannisyan, was a singular exception where the heroine not only speaks her mind, but methodically exposes the barbarity of the world constructed by men. Based on an autobiographical novella by the screenwriter Hrant Matevosyan, Autumn Sun follows a day in the life of Aghun, an acerbic matriarch in a tiny mountain village who prepares to visit her eldest son and his bride in the capital. Throughout the film, Aghun unleashes her exasperation at anyone who crosses her path, while ruminating on her struggles to survive, build a home, and make something of herself despite a loveless marriage and the stifling parochialism of rural community.
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A director of rare sensitivity, Hovhannisyan imbues this minor episode with the breadth of a Chekhovian tragedy about broken dreams, the imprisoning obligations of family life, and, ultimately, the central role of women as custodians of social relations.
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enough said (in a nutshell)
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Post by sally »

sevan's fishermen - n. dukor, gurgen marinosyan (1939) #ArmenCoMo

no subs but it's your basic soviet propaganda (though in armenia, therefore pretty) so it's easily interpretable good guy/baddie caricatures, with boats :)

though i am appreciating all the tough old ladies in these movies


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Post by rischka »

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tangenitally armenian! the film is mayrig/mother d. henri verneuil (who was armenian!) and the title may give you some idea of how sentimental this film is... after the genocide at least. this is the director's family story as part of the diaspora in france

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he was lucky to have both parents and two aunts surviving and what a sweet family group

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yes that's omar el charif and claudia cardinale as his mom and dad. i'm glad he got to make this film covering 20 years of his family's history but i would not watch it again
:lboxd: + ICM + :imdb:

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Post by rischka »

Mac Fridge wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2023 7:54 pm side note (of Armenfilm symbolism) opening the second page...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasuntsi_ ... 8statue%29

Sasuntsi Davit is a copper equestrian statue depicting David of Sassoun (Sasuntsi Davit) in Yerevan, Armenia. Erected by Yervand Kochar in 1959, it depicts the protagonist of the Armenian national epic Daredevils of Sassoun.
David of Sassoun is the main hero of Armenia's national epic Daredevils of Sassoun, who drove Arab Egyptian invaders out of Armenia.

As an oral history, it dates from the 8th century.
i kind of love this statue and that i just watched an egyptian play an armenian on film. also historical sassoun is now in a part of turkey called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Province BATMAN PROVINCE
:lboxd: + ICM + :imdb:

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i didn't watch any Armenian movies in past days
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but was gazing toward Yerevan (Jerevan 2440 km)
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from a local (East Bohemian) lookout tower
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Post by sally »

Due to the frequent employment of Armenians as chemists, goldsmiths, and pharmacists, many possessed the skills necessary for photography, in particular a thorough knowledge of the chemical processes used in development. During the late-nineteenth century, some of the principal studios in Constantinople were owned and operated by photographers of Armenian descent.


https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/sta ... 94632?s=19
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hello, it's me!
this merry-go-round didn't stop yet!
Woo-whoop!
We're gonna take you up really really high, drop you really really low, and you'll go really really fast!
And we'll take you upside down NOT once, NOT twice, but ZERO times!
Please keep your heads, shoulders, knees, and toes inside the ride at all times.
It's a very safe ride, we've only had 6 injuries on it.
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не болтай = don't babble
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HELLO, IT'S ME! (Frunze Dovlatyan, 1966) #ArmenCoMo

official synopses (of this film) usually say the following...
Artyom (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan) is a scientist who buries himself in his work after the woman he loves dies during the war.
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He is informed of his sweetheart’s death by a young woman, and soon love blossoms between the lonely doctor and the emerging beauty.
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based on the afore-mentioned, an aspiring viewer gets a false impression he/she is going to watch a "melodrama 2in1" (two love stories in a single film).
don't get fooled!
all you get is one sketchy tragic love story and then endless suspense (to first encounter the second heroine, one has to go through 100 minutes of the prevalently absurdist plot).
if you think, "i don't mind, witnessing a romance of an ephebophiliac physicist with a daddy-issues-girl is worth 100 minutes long suspense", i have to disappoint you.
there is no passion of this kind on display.
the juvenile heroine only drops a few tears while cutting the onion, and the aging physicist heartily embraces only his peer male friend.

but (despite the afore-mentioned) this film is not bringing only disappointment — it's delightful too!
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a viewer (of this film) can find delight in getting familiar with Armenian astrophysics and with the charms of Mount Aragats...
The story of Artyom Manvelyan as presented in this film is based on the real-life story of Soviet Armenian physicist Artyom Alikhanyan, who paved the way for the field of nuclear physics in the USSR.
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A member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he is regarded as the father of Armenian physics and was the two-time winner of the USSR State Prize and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as Lenin Prize.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artem_Alikhanian
In 1942, they initiated a scientific mission on Mount Aragats in order to search for the third (proton) component of cosmic rays. They found so-called narrow showers in cosmic rays and established the first evidence of the existence in cosmic rays of the particles with masses between that of a muon and proton.

After they founded a cosmic ray station on Aragats at an altitude of 3250 m, the two brothers participated in the foundation of the Armenian Academy of Sciences and established the Yerevan Physics Institute in 1943.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Aragats
Mount Aragats is an isolated four-peaked volcano massif in Armenia. Its northern summit, at 4,090 m (13,420 ft) above sea level, is the highest point of the Lesser Caucasus and Armenia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amberd
Amberd is a 10th-century fortress located 2,300 meters (7,500 ft) above sea level, on the slopes of Mount Aragats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahramashen_Church
An inscription on the inside lintel of the north portal to the church dates its completion to the year 1026.
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Born in Armenia, Nora Martirosyan earned a diploma in painting and drawing from the Yerevan Academy of Fine Arts before going to The Netherlands, where she studied in the Audiovisual Department at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She then entered Le Fresnoy, Studio des Arts Contemporains, in Tourcoing (northern France) while pursuing studies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. She now lives and works in Montpellier, France. Her artistic production is clearly based in film and video, but it lies on the border between documentary and fiction
ROAD MOVIE (Nora Martirosyan, 2005) #ArmenCoMo
"Road Movie" takes us on a bus trip through Yerevan.
Is it an exodus, a pilgrimage, or simply a tourist trip?
We don't exactly know where we are.
The music, the atmosphere, the faces give us a few indications that nevertheless remain very vague.
We are solicited by the experience of the journey.
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COURANT D’AIR (Nora Martirosyan, 2003) #ArmenCoMo
The house is inhabited by characters from childhood, a happy childhood in a warm, sunny country.
Real memories alternate with invented ones.
Like in childhood things are not said but felt.
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Post by sally »

the mulberry tree - gennadi melkonyan (1980) #ArmenCoMo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtp3tZ ... Vi&index=5
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Post by Lencho of the Apes »

I can't stand those movies with a Russian narrator overdubbed onto the orig. audio...
The opposite of 'reify' is... ?
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UNTITLED (Hamlet Hovsepian, 1976) #ArmenCoMo

https://youtu.be/-c7S4kGyI9Q
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Post by sally »

Lencho of the Apes wrote: Sat Jul 22, 2023 9:49 pm I can't stand those movies with a Russian narrator overdubbed onto the orig. audio...

yes, awful, especially when it's just the same man for every single character in the movie....but the short i posted above, that only has the babble over the credits, then it's armenian voices, no idea what use that is to anyone....
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Post by sally »

rue pouchkine - martine rousset (2017) #ArmenCoMo

here: https://lightcone.org/fr/film-10643-rue-pouchkine

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Post by sally »

komitas - don askarian (1989) #ArmenCoMo

i watched a movie! and it was gorgeous, like all other askarians

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16 DISTRICT 16 FLOORS 16 PEOPLE (Tatevik Vardanyan, 2018) #ArmenCoMo
a short film featuring a district in Yerevan, Armenia, where the legacy of the Soviet Union still occupies the minds and daily lives of the residents living in these huge unfinished monolithic structures
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SOUR GRAPE (Bagrat Hovhannisyan, 1974) #ArmenCoMo

there are people...
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... who describe this film as follows
Two years after receiving news of his father’s death in WWII a young boy continues to wait for trains from the front. The boy lives with his crippled uncle rather than with his mother, who has remarried and has another child. Then one day the father returns.
but to tell the truth...
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... it's a story of a crippled uncle (who is not really crippled — he is just hiding part of his leg by bending it back in his knee, the ankle tied tightly to a thigh, permanently wearing a long coat to cover up the deceit — grape stomping scene reveals the fraud) who forces his sister to remarry after she got pregnant while waiting (in vain) for her (presumedly dead) husband. when (presumedly dead) husband appears (out of the blue) at the local train station, patriarchal society blames the lady (presumedly remarried widow) for biandry (opposite of bigamy). how many husbands the poor heroine accumulated this way (due to an erroneous bureaucracy of the Soviet state, sending haphazardly false notices of death to random wives of soldiers) till the last shot of WW2 we can only speculate?!?!?! three (triandry)? four (tetrandry)?? five (pentandry)??? more (polyandry)???????

watch for yourself and make a guess!
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A PIECE OF SKY (Henrik Malyan, 1980) #ArmenCoMo
A man falls in love with and marries a prostitute,
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then has to defend her against malicious townsfolk.
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i would wish to write something witty but i feel outwitted by the dimwit main character
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some scenes very painterly (this one as if by Caravaggio?!)
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HEAD (Hamlet Hovsepian, 1975) #ArmenCoMo
these minute gestures stand in as grand statements of the human condition, akin to the films of Bas Jan Ader and Marcel Broodthaers.
https://youtu.be/PIythgf1TZ4
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Post by sally »

dark is the night - boris barnet / yerevan film studio (1945) #ArmenCoMo

expressive war propaganda with boris touches (and acting role) featuring a girl traumatised into head-trembling idiocy & filmed in real ruins

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Post by sally »

despel mespel wrote: Sat Jul 29, 2023 8:03 pm A PIECE OF SKY (Henrik Malyan, 1980) #ArmenCoMo


someone did a website of fashion inspired by armenian films: https://hay-hay.co/blogs/blog/armenfilm-inspiration

this is the selection for a piece of sky :D

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Post by sally »

armenian papers - ornella macchia (2015) #ArmenCoMo


https://vimeo.com/139317816
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lesson of soviet language - artashes hay-artyan (1941) #ArmenCoMo

wholesome maidens saving the world from fascists

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Post by sally »

blood against blood - gurgen gabrielyan, aram samvelyan (1941) #ArmenCoMo

https://kinodaran.com/movie/516

innocent boys saving the world from fascists

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the daughter - hamo bek-nazaryan (1942) #ArmenCoMo

https://kinodaran.com/movie/453

innocent children orphaned by fascists learn to sing patriotic songs

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Post by sally »

the magic carpet - lev atamanov (1948) #ArmenCoMo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxzmwZrg0HQ
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Post by sally »

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khaspush - hamo bek-nazaryan (1928) #ArmenCoMo

The film is about the Persian revolutionary movement of the peasants and townspeople against the dominance of the English tobacco monopoly.


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Post by sally »

nahapet / life triumphs - henrik malyan (1977) #ArmenCoMo

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as mentioned in the other thread, this #ArmenCoMo is not yet over...
FAREWELL (Maria Saakyan, 2004)
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