Khanjian ditches dark characters for Sabah
By ken eisner
Georgia Straight, Canada
June 2 2005
Long-time fans of Canadian film know Arsinee Khanjian as the
dark-browed muse in most films by Atom Egoyan, to whom she happens
to be married. The obsessive fan in Speaking Parts might be the most
memorable turn, or maybe the pregnant strip-club manager in Exotica.
Or perhaps they caught her as the world’s worst mother in Catherine
Breillat’s ornery Fat Girl. But Khanjian lightens up considerably in
Sabah, a new cross-cultural romantic comedy from Toronto filmmaker
Ruba Nadda.
Playing the title character, a never-married Muslim who has just
turned 40, Khanjian is on-screen for virtually every moment of the
film, which allows her, and us, to explore the warm and fuzzy side
of her nature as never before.
Actually in her mid-40s, the veteran actor drew on her own childhood
experiences, as an Armenian born in the Middle East, to round out the
character drawn by Nadda, whose parents are Syrian, although she was
born in this country.
“I was 17 when I left Lebanon,” Khanjian says in a call from her
home in Toronto. “Until my later years, I was very much in the heart
of the Armenian community, its social and cultural life. It wasn’t
until I was attending university in Canada, in Montreal, that I was
exposed to more, to the greater world.”
Although studying English and French-her language skills have been a
notable asset, especially in recent forays into European filmmaking-she
got an MA in political science as per her parents’ wishes.
“I delivered that,” she adds conclusively. At the same time, she
participated in amateur and collegiate dramatics. That’s how she met
Egoyan, a neophyte filmmaker looking for Armenians to play the main
family in his first feature, Next of Kin.
“I broke away in a very drastic way. Leaving Montreal to move to
Toronto, when I met Atom, was more than physical. The Armenian
community was much smaller and harder to find. And I knew I had to
reevaluate what I was raised with, in which everything was very much
based on that community, on those values.
“I broke a few taboos: I got a divorce-because I was married at
the time-and then by choosing this profession, which was somewhat
permissible as a hobby but not something for a serious person.”
The script for Sabah twigged the memory of all that, as the Gershwin
brothers put it. And it didn’t hurt that it would give Khanjian a
shot at her first bonafide lead.
“I loved the part when I first read it three years ago,” she recalls.
“I don’t belong to that specific culture, but I have a sense of
intimacy with the issues. And the specifics are very similar. In
fact, I have lived it more than Ruba has, since she was born in
Canada. We tried to make each other understand that we were on the
same wavelength.”
In some ways, taking the role meant shaking off a head scarf of
another sort.
“People are used to me playing darker characters in complex pursuit
of some idea. This is much more basic. I put a tremendous effort
into staying at the direct level of what I was communicating. We
were all playing a moment for itself, instead of serving the story. I
took the chance to make her as real as I could, and it wasn’t easy;
I had to learn four things at the same time!”
She’s referring to the fact that she needed to pick up a Syrian dialect
of Arabic, dive convincingly for the many pool scenes, make basketball
look fun in heavy clothes and a head scarf, and, most difficult of all,
groove on some serious belly dancing like she meant it.
“That was the toughest thing I’ve ever done. It threw out my back,
the first time I did it.”
The character-who is the only genuinely religious person in her family,
we should add-also undertakes some other small diversions, like
drinking alcohol and kissing a man not her husband and a non-Muslim,
too boot, when she falls in love with an amiable Anglo-Canadian
(as played by Shawn Doyle).
“These things are big no-nos, and some people are not going to like
that. But, hopefully, the audience is going to understand that these
are not suggestions for living. Sabah knows where her commitment lies,
and that’s where the freedom comes into play. It’s only by trying that
you can know where your values lie. Any code or ritual is ultimately
nothing on its own. We can pick and choose what is necessary to keep.
“You know, the reason all immigrants come here is for a better
opportunity for their children, but they often don’t understand that
there will be many changes for them, personally. The immigration
questionnaire doesn’t ask you if you are emotionally prepared to deal
with the changes. But maybe it should.”
Khanjian’s view of the film was challenged when the film debuted
earlier this year at the Rotterdam Film Festival in a 1,000-seat
theatre packed mostly with immigrant women wearing the hejab, most
of whom stuck around for a post-screening Q?&?A session.
“I was already nervous being a non-Muslim playing a Muslim woman. As
much as I was familiar with the codes, I was worried that it wouldn’t
read as authentic enough. But the reaction of the women was very
uplifting, and our answers were very respectfully listened to. What
we were saying was that whatever change Sabah goes through, it has
to come from within. And that was warmly received.”
Currently, Khanjian is also appearing in Egoyan’s latest, Where the
Truth Lies, which stars Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon as a variation on
the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis team. The movie just premiered at Cannes,
and this has been the first time she chose between promoting her own
film over his. She stayed in Toronto while her husband flew to France.
Apparently, the movie tested some of her own family taboos. The love
scenes made Egoyan “uncomfortable”, she admits. And as executive
producer of the low-budget project, he saw far more of that footage
than she did.
“That’s what Ruba told me, anyway. He [Egoyan] sat through the rushes,
but I heard that he did a lot of fast-forwarding. At the same time,
he was fascinated by the emotional immediacy of those scenes, since
that’s something people tend to say his films lack.”
If Sabah represents a challenge on a couple of levels, it’s a signal
to filmgoers, and makers, that Khanjian is capable of far more than
they have previously seen.
“It’s true, you know, that for a long time I was only in Atom’s
movies, and that’s what directors saw. In their mind, I belonged to
Atom Egoyan. But then people like Catherine Breillat, Michael Haneke,
and Ken Finkleman gave me a chance to do different things. And now,
I have to say, comedy is what I’d love to be doing. Yes, I can smile.
And perhaps make other people smile.”