It is rather fitting that such a tribute was screened at the very festival Khachatryan founded over 20 years ago.

Harutyun Khachatryan is perhaps one of the most famous and recognisable Armenian filmmakers alive today, best known for revolutionising Armenian documentary film and for founding the Golden Apricot International Film Festival over 20 years ago. In Dance of Life, however, the camera is turned the other way around — Khachatryan himself becoming the main focus and subject for Armenian director Arsen Aghajanyan’s latest documentary.

The film is segmented into various ‘novellas’, as Aghajanyan terms them, the majority of which are derived from Khachatryan’s most famous films and focusing on both some aspect of Khachatryan’s life as well as topics related to the relevant film. For example, in the first novella titled ‘The Poet’s Path’, derived from Return of the Poet (2005), the camera follows Khachatryan as he returns to his hometown of Akhalkalaki in Georgia’s Samstkhe-Javakheti plateau. The focus jumps between Khachataryan recounting tales from his childhood to the village and plateau today, the work of poet Ashugh Jivani, whose statue was the focus of Khachatryan’s 2005 film, tying everything together.

In a later novella, titled ‘The Promised Land’ after Khachatryan’s Return to the Promised Land (1991), the camera follows as Khachatryan returns to the village where filming took place, meeting the family he filmed over 30 years ago. Aghajanyan contrasts footage from the original film with shots of the family today, now with six grandchildren, yet still living in similar, poor conditions. While perhaps unintended, this is a chapter where the success Khachatryan has achieved from his once similarly rural origins now appears at times to make him condescending or unrelatable.

While this segmentation of the documentary makes for very poetic storytelling, it also makes for a very fractured narrative. Past and present are all intertwined together, with certain scenes repeating across various chapters, which can be confusing and jarring for viewers, especially those not familiar with Khachataryan’s entire oeuvre.

One throughline is a train journey Aghajanyan and Khachataryan take, that makes up the main interview throughout the film. The shaky, handheld camera appears amateurish at times, especially as it struggles to stay on Khachataryan’s face amidst the bouncing over the train tracks. Yet, footage of the other passengers, especially of a drunk man who comes up to Khachataryan, later inviting him to his home, provides some interesting comparisons to who Khachataryan could have become under different circumstances.

The most emotional chapter, titled ‘Marietta’, covers how Khachataryan met and married the love of his life, his wife Mari. It is a chapter that humanises Khachataryan much more than the rest of the film, where he often appears aloof, or the stereotype of an auteur director, claiming that dialogue is only necessary for a poorly shot film, and that the festival concept is well-past its time, having become, in his words, entirely self-serving. It is also the only chapter where Mari gets a voice, otherwise appearing in the film as an impeccably dressed shadow following her husband on his journey.

Aghajanyan’s tribute to Khachataryan succeeds in showing the latter as a complex figure, well-respected by everyone he meets, yet also still an artist and true individual at heart, still striving to forge his own path and identity. For viewers interested in snapshots of Armenian culture and history while gaining insight into one of the country’s most famous filmmakers, then Aghajanyan’s documentary will be of strong interest. For those who prefer a more narrative, focused piece, however, or for a general audience less familiar with Khachataryan’s work, it is perhaps not a priority.

Film details: Dance of Life (2026) by Arsen Aghajanyan. The film was screened on 14 July 2026 in Yerevan as part of the 23rd Golden Apricot International Film Festival.

https://oc-media.org/review-dance-of-life-a-poetic-tribute-to-armenian-filmmaker-harutyun-khachatryan/