SCREAMERS
By Peter Debruge
Daily Variety
December 8, 2006 Friday
A Maya Releasing release of a BBC Television and the Raffy Manoukian
Charity presentation of a MG2 Prods. production in association with
Isis Prods. U.K. Produced by Nick de Grunwald, Tim Swain, Peter
McAlevey, Carla Garapedian.
Directed by Carla Garapedian. Camera (color, HD), Charles Rose; editor,
Bill Yahraus; music, Jeff Atmajian; music supervisor, Liz Gallacher;
supervising sound editor, Vince Tennant; associate producers, Ara
Sarafian, Eleanor Thomas. Reviewed on DVD, Los Angeles, Dec. 4,
2006. (In AFI Film Festival.) Running time: 91 MIN.
With: Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian, John Dolmayan,
Samantha Power, Stepan Haytayan, Maritza Ohanesian, Peter Galbraith,
Salih Booker, Sibel Edmonds, Dennis Hastert.
What does metal band System of a Down have to do with the mass
extermination of Armenians in 1915? Descended from survivors
of the so-called "Armenian genocide," band members teamed with
Armenian-American filmmaker Carla Garapedian and partner Peter
McAlevey to make "Screamers," a soapbox doc that intercuts concert
footage with talking heads and scenes of horrifying human atrocity.
But a noble cause does not a good movie make. Pic repeatedly drowns
its impassioned message with music, creating an awkward hybrid between
history lesson and concert doc that will be a tough sell to either aud.
If the recent Dixie Chicks study "Shut Up & Sing" demonstrates how
quickly the public can turn on artists for being politically outspoken,
"Screamers" counters with a more optimistic view: System of a Down’s
fans actually expect a level of political activism from the band,
who have made it their personal cause to spread awareness of the
"ethnic cleansing" Hitler reportedly used as his model for the
Holocaust. To this day, Turkey denies the "historical intrigue"
of the deportations and massacres as a lie, prosecuting critics for
denigrating "Turkishness," while U.S. and U.K. politicians resist
officially recognizing the Armenian genocide.
With his Weird Al hair and King Tut goatee, lead singer Serj Tankian
proves most eloquent on the subject. Docu shows Tankian reflecting on
his heritage, both on the road and in conversation with his disabled
grandfather, who shares stories of the long marches he endured as
a child.
Pic’s most surprising revelation concerns the extent to which System
of a Down use their celebrity to draw attention to the issue (many
of their songs address the subject directly), even going so far as
to broadcast related news footage during their concerts and giving
classroom lectures on the subject.
And yet, the movie scrambles the message. Every few minutes, just as
the interview footage begins to gather momentum, another heavy-metal
song rumbles to life, and Garapedian and editor Bill Yahraus whisk
auds away again to an arena where goth kids are worshipping at the
band’s feet.
On one hand, System of a Down specifically wants the world to
acknowledge the eradication of more than a million Armenians as
"genocide," a semantic distinction that might pave the way to
reparations. But pic doesn’t define the term until 50 minutes in,
and no sooner does it explain the "G word’s" potential — "If it’s
‘genocide,’ then you have to do something about it" — than it offers
the counter-example: "The Bush administration seemed to think if they
called it ‘genocide,’ then they were doing something."
"Screamers" begins to lose focus as montages take on the many
calamities of the past century at once. Photos of forlorn Armenians
and skin-and-bones corpses certainly turn the stomach, but pic’s
slideshow-of-horrors strategy blends them with images of the Holocaust
and mass killings in Rwanda, Sarajevo, Srebenica and Darfur, making
it tricky to distinguish one mass grave from another.
The effect, much like the band’s music, is one of shock and rage.
Instead of communicating the facts in an organized and effective way,
the film embodies an emotional response to the atrocities. The band
and crew seem to be venting their frustration, but auds seeking a
provocative intellectual discourse would be better served by Atom
Egoyan’s "Ararat."
Most of the interviews with relevant politicians and activists take
place primarily on park benches and noisy city streets, which gives
the film a disorganized and almost impulsive feel, while fighter-jet
clips and other anti-violence inserts have a way of upstaging the
rocking concert footage.