ROCKUMENTARY RAGES AGAINST GENOCIDE
R.M. Vaughan
Globe and Mail, Canada
June 8 2007
Before I watched Screamers, a new documentary by the BBC’s Carla
Garapedian, I thought the film was just another concert documentary –
this time about the U.S. prog-punk band System Of A Down, who sound
a lot like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and look a lot like Rage Against
The Machine, two bands I cannot stand.
Screamers, however, is much more than a backstage-pass movie. The
members of SOAD are Armenian-American, and have dedicated themselves
to educating the world about the Armenian genocide and the Turkish
government’s continued denial of the crime.
Remember the good old days, when concert films were all about Jack
Daniels, bouncy groupies named Candy and the purple haze at the back
of the bus?
A rockumentary about the Armenian genocide must be a first.
One idea was definitely to reach a younger market, because who’s going
to want to go to the movies to see a genocide film? But what impressed
me when I first went to a SOAD concert, and I wasn’t a fan, was the
number of human-rights groups camped out around the concert area. The
young fans knew all about Armenia, Rwanda, Darfur – I was shocked by
this. I guess I was rather cynical about the next generation.
I’m not questioning the sincerity of the band, but isn’t there a
danger, especially when you’re talking about pop music and kids,
that the discussions about genocide will become just another part of
their PR package?
I would say yes, of course. But in the case of this band, if you look
at their record, they are very publicity-shy. They shy away from the
usual trappings of publicity that surround rock stars. Their message
is: We are our performance. They don’t really even talk publicly, and
they were very reluctant to do the film. The only reason they agreed
to do it was because they knew of my record with human-rights films –
but it took a lot of persuading. They were afraid the concert aspects
of the film would detract from the politics. They were worried about
exactly what you describe, so this was an act of faith on their part.
The other danger was that the film would end up being too serious and
po-faced, so I included some tour humour, and really needed to show
the kids at the concerts having a good time. Part of talking about
genocide for the band is also talking about survival, about enjoying
life and saying I’m here, I’m making noise, I am here because my
grandparents survived the horror.
The band comes across as fun-loving. They don’t seem to suffer from
Bono-itus.
They are. They don’t take themselves seriously. They never tell their
audiences that they should feel only sorrow or pity, but that they
should be passionate about life.
Are you in danger now if you visit Turkey?
Well, looking at the evidence – one of the contributors to our film,
the journalist Hrant Dink, was assassinated after he gave an interview
to us. I don’t attribute his death to our film, but I’ve been told,
unofficially, that all the people who are Turkish citizens in our
film are on a hit list, are considered traitors. I don’t know if
that’s true, because authoritarian states often create these rumours
to frighten people into censoring themselves, but there’s certainly a
climate of fear. To answer your question directly, I have not received
any threats, and I’m touching wood here. I would very much like to
go to Turkey to show the film, but I’d like that to happen without
the cinema owner being arrested.
Your film posits that all genocides are interrelated. I have to
admit, I get a bit queasy when the specificity of historical events
is diminished.
This is my answer: The semantics and linguistics of this phenomenon
are important to consider and are part of the problem. When we used
to say the word holocaust, it meant a specific event, but it also
meant the most horrific thing you can imagine. And I think that word
has become devalued. But the policy is always the same – it is the
policy of systemic extermination by a government. If one wants to
make a distinction with numbers or scale, that’s a fair argument,
but part of the problem is that the Jewish community, in general,
has not wanted to get involved with the Armenian genocide because
Israel is an ally of Turkey. In Los Angeles, where I live, however,
a group of rabbis have publicly supported the film and called for the
recognition of the Armenian genocide. So, the answer to your question
is, yes and no.
And who am I to argue with rabbis? So, you’ve made a film about
the Armenian genocide, and a film about Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian
journalist murdered in Iran – after all that, don’t you want to relax
and make a film about doll collecting or baby animals?
I was just at Cannes, and I kept asking myself, Why can’t I make a
gentle little film about wine, in the south of France?
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