Variety
Aug 31 2014
Venice Film Review: ‘The Cut’
Fatih Akin’s drama about the Armenian genocide had all the makings of
a majestic adventure picture, yet falters with its pedestrian script
and mise-en-scene.
Jay Weissberg
There have been a paltry few movies about the 1915 Armenian genocide,
which has only increased expectations around Fatih Akin’s already
buzzy “The Cut.” Budgeted at $21 million, this historical
epic-cum-Western about a father looking across the globe for his
missing twin daughters had all the makings of a majestic adventure
pic, only something odd happened along the way: The script, co-written
by vet Mardik Martin, is pedestrian, and the mise-en-scene, striving
hard for a classic Hollywood look, lacks grandeur, notwithstanding
impressive location work. Akin’s considerable body of fans will likely
scratch their heads, and marketing will be problematic.
Presumably the idea of having all the Armenians speak accented English
was to increase the pic’s Stateside chances, yet the lines are often
so commonplace, and have been heard a thousand times before in so many
historical adventures, that the arthouse crowd (Akin’s core) will
question why they’re being treated like mainstream viewers. Euro play
will prove more lucrative, though here, too, the director’s admirers
will find themselves wondering what happened to the energy and
psychological acuity of the helmer’s previous films.
Akin clearly wants “The Cut” to be informative, a fine thing
considering the ridiculous contesting in some quarters of the
genocide’s extent. That’s why intro titles explain the German-Ottoman
Empire alliance during WWI, when minorities under the Turks became
enemies overnight. But why did this happen? Without at least some hint
of why minorities, and Armenians in particular, were falsely
considered a threat, “The Cut” turns into an elementary-school history
lesson, providing rudimentary facts without connecting any dots.
Mardin, in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border, is home to the
blacksmith Nazaret Manoogian (Tahar Rahim) — note the first name’s
Christological significance, since it’ll be coming back. He, his wife
Rakel (Hindi Zahra) and school-age twin daughters Lucinee (Dina
Fakhoury) and Arsinee (Zein Fakhoury) form a happy family until 1915,
when the Armenian round-up hits its height. Nazaret is forced into
slave labor building a road in the desert; one day he and his fellow
prisoners have their throats slit by Ottoman command, but Mehmet
(Bartu Kucukcaglayan) deliberately only wounds his neck. Mehmet’s like
the Good Thief, only he’s the one saving Nazaret/Jesus.
The two men hook up with some deserters, and then Nazaret learns that
Armenian women and children have been taken to the Ras-al-Ayn camp, a
three-day walk away. Curiously, Akin lenses the camp in various shades
of color-corrected sand tonalities, and the shot of Nazaret moving
through a field of pleading, desperate humanity is rendered so
artificial as to suggest a children’s illustration made
semi-monochrome to avoid overly strong images. There he finds his
sister-in-law, who tells him his wife and sister are dead. Nazaret
cradles the expiring woman in his lap, looking like a reverse Pieta in
which Jesus holds Mary.
Off he goes with untold reserves of strength, accompanied by electric
guitar strains that, combined with the desert landscape, call to mind
“Jesus Christ Superstar.” He meets kindly Omar Nasreddin (Makram J.
Khoury), the film’s obligatory good Muslim, who hides Nazaret in his
soap-making establishment in Aleppo, where he’s joined by fellow
Armenian Krikor (Simon Abkarian), one of the film’s many sketchily
developed characters.
Jump to November 1918, when the British liberate the city and the
remaining Armenians pelt the retreating Turks, but Nazaret casts no
stones. Instead he runs into his former apprentice Levon (Shubham
Saraf), who tells him his kids are alive: Rakel placed them with a
Bedouin family before she died. Nazaret spends the next few years
combing various orphanages in Syria and Lebanon until, in 1922, he
finds where they were placed, and is told they’re married and in Cuba.
Suffice to say Nazaret goes to Cuba, looked after by kindly barber
Hagob Nakashian (Kevork Malikyan); then Florida (where he’s shot at by
rednecks); Minneapolis (Moritz Bleibtreu has a silent cameo as a
factory owner); and finally North Dakota. Everywhere he goes, whether
in the desert, the beach, or the swamps, a convenient conveyance
happens along to ensure he reaches his destination, where yet another
disappointment awaits.
Akin says “The Cut” forms the tail end of his “Love, Death and the
Devil” trilogy, which began with “Head-On” and “The Edge of Heaven.”
The earlier two films treated their subjects with nuance and a sense
of psychology, getting inside their characters’ heads and making their
choices — good or bad — feel like an integral part of who they were.
Yet here it seems the director became overwhelmed by the historical
epic format, since Nazaret is a simplistic figure with just one
motivating force. It worked brilliantly in “The Searchers” and “Seven
Men from Now,” but that sort of classic Hollywood structure is
probably the most difficult to imitate now without feeling creaky, and
“The Cut” definitely feels creaky. In addition, the “Devil” here is a
mere cutout Satan, neutering any exploratory questioning of evil.
The production is unquestionably big, though there are times when a
few hundred more extras, a la Cecil B. De Mille, would have
exponentially increased the film’s power. Akin’s regular d.p., Rainer
Klausmann, delivers visuals that are far more epic than in their
earlier collaborations, with long shots handsomely reproduced on 35mm
using a 40mm lens especially adapted for monumental images of Jordan’s
mountainous terrain, where most of the desert scenes were done.
Perhaps in keeping with a 1950s look, the lensing is curiously staid,
and the matte lighting used works against a sense of depth.
Production design is a strong suit, though here, again, one feels the
camera isn’t taking full advantage of the period sets, which were
apparently constructed with great attention to historical detail. It’s
churlish to point out that a 1918 screening of Chaplin’s “The Kid”
(1921) is an impossibility, yet given the filmmakers’ pride in their
period accuracy, it is a bit surprising. Aside from the choice of
English dialogue, which is sure to divide critics, Alexander Hacke’s
electronic score adds another level of incongruity: Western-inspired
twangs call attention to the film’s oater underpinnings, yet the
cacophony that accompanies Nazaret’s discovery of murdered Armenians
in a well needn’t have been so forcefully underscored if the scene
itself were stronger.
Venice Film Review: ‘The Cut’
Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (competing), Aug. 31, 2014. Running
time: 138 MIN.
Production
(Germany-France-Italy-Russia-Poland-Canada-Turkey) A Pandora Film (in
Germany)/Pyramide (in France)/Bim Distribuzione (in Italy) release of
a Bombero Intl., Pyramide Prods., Pandora Film, Corazon Intl., NDR,
Ard Degeto, France 3 Cinema, Dorje Film, Bim Distribuzione, Mars Media
Entertainment, Opus Film, Jordan Films, Anadolu Kultur, with the
participation of Canal Plus, France Televisions, Cine Plus, with the
assistance of the Malta Film Commission, Royal Film Commission Jordan.
(International sales: the Match Factory, Cologne, Germany.) Produced
by Fatih Akin, Karl Baumgartner, Reinhard Brundig, Nurhan
Sekerci-Porst, Flaminio Zadra. Co-producers, Fabienne Vonier, Francis
Boespflug, Alberto Fanni, Valerio de Paolis, Ruben Dishdishyan, Aram
Movseyan, Laurette Bourassa, Doug Steeden, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa
Puszczynska. Co-executive producer, Stephane Parthenay.
Crew
Directed by Fatih Akin. Screenplay, Akin, Mardik Martin. Camera
(color, widescreen), Rainer Klausmann; editor, Andrew Bird; music,
Alexander Hacke; production designer, Allan Starski; supervising art
director, Nenad Pecur; art director, Frank Bollinger; costume
designer, Katrin Aschendorf; sound, Jean-Paul Mugel; sound designer,
Malte Bieler; line producers, Marcus Loges, Claudia Calvino, Fuad
Khalil, Joseph Formosa Randon, Graziella Decesare; associate
producers, Ali Akdeniz, Ali Betil; assistant director, Ralph Remstedt;
casting, Beatrice Kruger.
With
Tahar Rahim, Simon Abkarian, Makram J. Khoury, Hindi Zahra, Kevork
Malikyan, Bartu Kucukcaglayan, Trine Dyrholm, Moritz Bleibtreu, Akin
Gazi, George Georgiou, Arevik Martirossian, Arsinee Khanjian, Shubham
Saraf, Dina Fakhoury, Zein Fakhoury, Jenia Jabaji, Numan Acar, Maja
Remstedt, Anna Savva, Carlos Riveron, Carlos Calero, Lara Heller.
(English, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish dialogue)
From: Baghdasarian