“AFTER WATER THERE IS SAND”: AMERICAN-ARMENIAN FILM DIRECTOR DEALS WITH LOSS AND ROOTS
Sona Avagyan
hetq
12:12, August 31, 2011
“My grandfather loved taking pictures of the family on vacation. He
always wanted to go to Alaska and photograph Alaska. After he passed
away my grandmother, my mother and aunt went to Alaska to do what he
couldn’t do. So that is where the idea of the film came from and I
thought it would be nice and important to do the film in Armenia,”
recounts American-Armenian film director Saro Varjabedian.
He was in Armenia for the first time this August to shoot his film
“After Water There is Sand.” The director has taken the title of the
film from the Armenia proverb of the same name which he explains in
the following way: the water goes, the sand remains, the person goes
and the memory remains.
The sand is the memory of the film’s main character – American-Armenian
woman Tamar – about her deceased husband with whom she had lived for
60 years. In the film the 80-year old Tamar comes to Armenia with
her two daughters for the first time to fulfill her husband’s dream –
to photograph his family in Armenia in front of Mount Ararat.
The film is dedicated to the memory of Saro’s grandfather who passed
away 4 years ago. The script is also, to a certain extent, connected
to the director’s grandfather. “I was very interested in exploring how
you make peace with a person’s loss. And my idea for the film was to
get closer to that person by doing the thing that the person loved,”
says Saro.
On the other hand, he wanted to learn more about Armenia and his
Armenian ancestry by coming to Armenia and shooting a film here.
Saro says that after having shot the film dedicated to his grandfather
he feels better. When the grandfather was alive, Saro had the idea
that he would be around forever. “One of things that I still regret
is that I didn’t spend more time with him when he was around. I don’t
think that will change. But all I can do now is to make the most of
my time and make sure I am spending time with my grandmother and the
other family members that are still around, making sure I don’t make
the same mistake,” the director says.
With the film, Saro wants to deliver the thought to the viewers that
even after suffering a loss of a husband of 60 years there is still
a life to be lived, that you can find new meaning in life and that
new meaning for overseas Armenians could be reconnecting with their
identity and family.
Though Tamar doesn’t manage to fulfill her husband’s dream in the
film, because the Russian guards don’t allow to take pictures on
the border in front of Ararat, the director believes what is more
important is that Tamar gets more connected to her two daughters
through this experience; that they become stronger as a family.
“And more important is that through her daughters, through the
taxi driver, by being in Armenia, she learns to make peace with the
husband’s passing. She understands that more important is not the
picture, it’s that she experienced this thing with her family like
her husband always wanted to do,” says Saro Varjabedian.
In the film “After Water There is Sand”, there are almost no men. This
is a film about 4 Armenian women. An important film character is the
taxi driver who is also a woman and takes Tamar and her daughters to
a border village. Everybody tells Saro that there are no female taxi
drivers in Armenia but Saro is sure that in Yerevan and Gyumri there
are 2-3 female taxi drivers, though he hasn’t seen them.
In the film, the story of the taxi driver is like that of Tamar –
she has also lost her husband and drives a taxi because her husband
was a taxi driver. Saro says if the taxi driver were a male, he would
not have the same psychological connection with Tamar.
In Sevan, Saro saw the statue of Akhtamar and heard the real story
about Akhtamar there. All the same, Saro liked the changed version of
the legend which he had been told before. He spontaneously decided
to put the very changed version of story of Akhtamar in his film:
one day Tamar was prevented from going to light the flame and her
beloved got lost and drowned and when she heard the man’s scream,
Tamar felt so guilty that she stayed there turning into a statue
which waits for the beloved man.
At first sight this version of “Akhtamar” doesn’t have anything
common with the script of the film “After Water There is Sand.” But
for the director the connection is obvious – Tamar from the film is
also waiting for her late husband.
Saro has only to shoot small pick-ups. Afterwards, he will edit the
film and submit it to all the major international and Armenian film
festivals. Saro has written the script of the film himself with the
help of his American-Armenian classmate, director Margot Arakelian.
Saro Varjabediann now studies at Columbia University. As a cameraman,
he has participated in many film shoots. “After Water There is Sand”
is his 3rd short film as a director. He will submit the film as his
graduate thesis.
The lecturers at Columbia University have understood and liked
the script of the film because there is a universal message in it:
everyone loses a family member, a loved one and suffers because of it.
“And my teachers were very supportive of my very specific cultural
identity. So I think they are very excited about it,” Saro says.
He is sure that the best a director can hope for is a film that makes
people think about life philosophically and which emotionally impacts
them. He hopes that “After Water There is Sand” will make people ask
questions and teach people something about Armenian culture or family
and relationships.
At the end of the film, Tamar decides to continue traveling within
Armenia and to see the rest of the country. Saro has also travelled
during his first visit to Armenia. He has been to Gyumri, Jermuk,
Sevan, Shushi, Stepanakert, Dilijan, and has visited Tatev and
Noravank.
He says that the nature of Armenia is “amazingly beautiful”, and
people in the villages were so warm that whenever they would see
that he was not local and spoke Armenian with great difficulty,
they wanted to help him, even to feed him.
“In Stepanakert I was supposed to call a friend and then he was
going to pick me up and take me around. But when I got there, my
phone didn’t work and I had no Internet, I had no way of getting in
touch with anyone. I entered many stores saying “This is busted. I
can’t make a phone call (Õ¡Õ½ Õ¯Õ¸Õ¿O~@Õ¡Õ® Õ§”, “Õ¹Õ¥Õ´ Õ¯O~@Õ¶Õ¡O~@
Õ¦Õ¡Õ¶Õ£Õ¥Õ´). That’s all I can say. I found one store with a guy,
he knew English. He called from the store’s phone to my friend. Then
he gave me coffee, water. The only information I had was a business
card of the Naregatsi Centre in Shushi. He arranged someone to take
me to Shushi and promised to take care of me,” Saro tells.
At the same time, Saro notes that everyone he has talked to in Armenia
has said that finding work is very difficult. In the words of the
American-Armenian director, living conditions in Armenian villages,
compared to the standards of the life he has lived and seen in America,
are very bad. For instance, there is no running water in the houses
and you have to fetch water in backets. And in Shushi it seemed to
Saro that the buildings are going to pieces.
2nd, 3rd and 4th photos have been provided by Saro Varjabedian
From: Baghdasarian