Toronto Star, Canada
Oct 16 2005
Exposing dark side of Turkey
Writer’s ordeal a test case for Europe’s principles, says Salman
Rushdie
The work room of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus,
that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these
things, separates or unites – or, perhaps, separates and unites – the
worlds of Europe and Asia.
There could be no more appropriate setting for a novelist whose work
does much the same thing. In many books, most recently the acclaimed
novel Snow and the haunting memoir/portrait of his home town,
Istanbul: Memories and the City, Pamuk has laid claim to the title,
formerly held by Yashar Kemal, of “Greatest Turkish writer.”
He is also an outspoken man. In 1999, for example, he refused the
title of “state artist.”
“For years I have been criticizing the state for putting authors in
jail, for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem by force and for
its narrow-minded nationalism,” he said. “I don’t know why they tried
to give me the prize.”
He has described Turkey as having “two souls,” and has criticized its
human-rights abuses.
“Geographically we are part of Europe,” he says, “but politically?”
I spent some days with Pamuk in July, at a literary festival in the
pretty Brazilian seaside town of Parati. For those few days he seemed
free of his cares, even though, earlier in the year, death threats
made against him by Turkish ultranationalists – “He shouldn’t be
allowed to breathe,” one said – had forced him to spend two months
out of his country.
But the clouds were gathering. The statement he made to the Swiss
newspaper Tages Anzeiger on Feb. 6, which had been the cause of the
ultranationalists’ wrath, was about to become a serious problem once
again.
“Thirty thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in
Turkey,” he told the Swiss paper. “Almost no one dares to speak out
on this but me.”
He was referring to the killings by Ottoman forces of thousands of
Armenians between 1915 and 1917. Turkey does not contest the deaths,
but denies that they amounted to genocide. Pamuk’s reference to
“30,000” Kurdish deaths refers to those killed since 1984 in the
conflict between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists.
On Sept. 1, Pamuk was indicted by a district prosecutor for the crime
of having “blatantly belittled Turkishness” by his remarks. If
convicted he faces up to three years in jail.
Article 301/1 of the Turkish penal code, under which Pamuk is to be
tried, states: “A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the
Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly shall be sentenced to a
penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years …
Where insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a
foreign country, the penalty shall be increased by one-third.” If
Pamuk is found guilty, he faces an additional penalty for having made
the statement abroad.
You would think Turkish authorities might have avoided so blatant an
assault on their most internationally celebrated writer’s fundamental
freedoms at the very moment their application for full membership of
the European Union – an extremely unpopular application in many EU
countries – was being considered at the EU summit.
However, in spite of being a state that has ratified both the U.N.
and European covenants on human rights, both of which see freedom of
expression as central, Turkey continues to enforce a penal code that
is clearly contrary to these same principles and has set the date for
Pamuk’s trial for Dec. 16.
The number of convictions and prison sentences under the laws that
penalize free speech in Turkey has declined in the past decade. But
International PEN’s records show that more than 50 writers,
journalists and publishers currently face trial. Turkish journalists
continue to protest against the revised penal code, and the
International Publishers Association, in a deposition to the U.N.,
has described this revised code as being “deeply flawed.”
The Turkish application is being presented, most vociferously by
Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, as a test case for the EU. To
reject it, we are told, would be a catastrophe, widening the gulf
between Islam and the West. There is an element of Blairite poppycock
in this, a disturbingly communalist willingness to sacrifice Turkish
secularism on the altar of faith-based politics.
But the Turkish application is indeed a test case for the EU: a test
of whether the EU has any principles at all. If it has, then its
leaders will insist that the charges against Pamuk be dropped at once
and further insist on rapid revisions to Turkey’s repressive penal
code.
An unprincipled Europe, which turned its back on great artists and
fighters for freedom, would continue to alienate its citizens, whose
disenchantment has already been widely demonstrated by the votes
against the proposed new constitution. So the West is being tested as
well as the East. On both sides of the Bosphorus, the Pamuk case matters.

The Observer / The Guardian, UK
Oct 16 2005
Nobel adversaries
Robert McCrum
Some years ago in transit through Bangkok, I found myself in the
airport bookshop browsing a paperback novel by a local writer with an
almost unpronounceable name. I forget the title, but the publisher’s
blend of chutzpah and wishful thinking was memorable. In large red
letters above the author’s name was the legend: ‘Shortlisted for the
Nobel Prize’.
Unlike Booker, the Nobel does not go in for a shortlist, at least in
public. The academy’s business is conducted behind closed doors and
what we are allowed to see is all very Swedish. Where Booker triggers
an avalanche of press releases, parties and book-trade promotions,
Nobel amounts to one man (the secretary of the academy) standing in a
baroque salon and uttering one name to the world’s press on a
Thursday in early October. This statement is often followed by a
chorus of: ‘Who? Who?’, but since the academy never gives interviews,
no one is really any the wiser.
This bizarre ritual is now just over 100 years old. It’s an odd,
publicity-averse moment for a prize distinguished by sometimes
wayward eccentricity. The first Nobel (1901) should have gone to Leo
Tolstoy, but in the end it was awarded to an obscure French poet,
Rene Francois Armand Sully Prudhomme. That decision established a
preference for the maverick that persisted throughout the subsequent
century.
Since then, Nobel has made some good choices – Eliot, Beckett,
Bellow, Marquez, Heaney – and some gobsmackers: Galsworthy, Pearl S
Buck, Winston Churchill and Nelly Sachs. En passant, it has
overlooked Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene. Jean-Paul
Sartre turned it down in 1964, saying he did not want to be read by
‘celebrity collectors’.
The prize has also shied away from controversy. So there were no
awards from 1940 to 1943. In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, the
academy gave it to Boris Pasternak. There was a huge row with the
Soviet Union and since then the Nobel committee has opted for a quiet
life.
Quiet and, some might say, occasionally incomprehensible. For
instance, in the last decade, the Nobel has gone to Dario Fo (near
universal dismay), Gao Xingjian (bafflement) and, in 2004, the
reclusive Elfriede Jelinek.
So much for the global picture. From an insular, British point of
view, apart from Churchill, Golding (1983), and Bertrand Russell
(1950), Nobel has generally ignored English literature.
This makes the choice of Harold Pinter all the more welcome. Here,
beyond question, is a world-class playwright whose selection almost
on the day of his 75th birthday, will be the cause of widespread
rejoicing.
While The Observer congratulates the Swedish Academy for choosing a
great writer of international stature whose work has resonance around
the world, we cannot overlook the missed opportunity inherent in this
decision.
As Pinter himself will be only too well aware, Turkey’s most
distinguished living writer is Orhan Pamuk, author of The White
Castle, My Name Is Red and Snow. Pamuk currently faces trial for
making public reference to the genocidal Armenian massacres. His case
goes to court on 16 December; and, if convicted, he faces a
three-year prison sentence.
It’s wonderful news that Pinter is our latest Nobel laureate, but the
Swedes have missed a golden opportunity to take a stand against a
shameful and trumped-up assault on a writer’s freedom. Pinter would
be the first to recognise this.

Associated Press
Oct 16 2005
Duke Scholar Free From Armenian Prison, Concentrates On Work
POSTED: 1:59 pm EDT October 16, 2005
DURHAM, N.C. — A Duke University scholar is back at work on his
doctoral dissertation after spending two months in an Armenian prison
this summer.
Yektan Turkyilmaz was detained when he tried to leave Armenia with
antique books, which is a violation of the country’s law. Supporters
said Turkyilmaz bought the books from street vendors.
Turkyilmaz was given a two-year suspended sentence in August and
eventually was allowed to leave Armenia, though the books were
confiscated.
A citizen of Turkey, Turkyilmaz is the only Turkish scholar who has
been allowed to study in Armenia. The countries have tense relations
dating back to World War I.
Turkyilmaz’s dissertation touches on that hostility, and he said he
thinks that is part of the reason he ended up in jail. He said
Armenian authorities grilled him for hours, asking questions that had
nothing to do with the books he bought.
He worries that the conviction could give him trouble with
immigration authorities in the future. But he said he was not bitter
about it, and that he was happy to be back in the United States to
continue his work.

Jordan Times, Jordan
Oct 16 2005
Revisiting Turkey’s EU membership
By Walid M. Sadi
Revisiting the issue of Turkey’s membership in the EU is tempting and
challenging to any interested party. One wonders what options Turkey
has in the face of the stiff conditions placed on it in order to
become eligible for full membership in the European club.
Ankara can, of course, tell Europe that it is no longer interested in
entering the exclusive European club as long if it is not really
wanted and its admission does not hinge on more reasonable
conditions. Why would the Turks seek to become members of a grouping
where they feel they are not welcomed with open arms? After all, they
are a people proud of their heritage, history, tradition and culture.
A proud people never imposes itself on anybody, but expects to be
invited. Yet this would be the easy way out.
Turkish national interests can be served, and served well, once it is
a full-fledged EU member. Turkey’s entry into the union would also
serve the interests of the entire Middle East. What country can
explain the pains, sufferings and woes of the Middle East region
better than Turkey?
Turkey can be the bridge between the Middle East and the Brussels,
where decision with far-reaching consequences are taken.
Considering this, the Middle Eastern countries should rally in
support of Turkey’s membership, because they stand to gain
politically, economically and culturally. But as important as all
these considerations and implications are for Turkey and the Middle
East region, Turkey’s membership must not come at any price. It would
be only fair that Turkey were not only imposed conditions but set its
own as well.
On Cyprus, Turkey must be prepared to accept the situation as long as
the interests of the Turkish minority on the island are protected.
Regarding the European conditions on democracy and human rights
issues, Turkey stands to gain by fulfilling them. On the Kurdish
minority issue, it cannot but comply with international standards on
minority rights, provided the territorial unity of the country is
preserved and protected. Concerning the Armenian issue, wherever the
truth lies on who is responsible for their massacre almost a century
ago, it cannot be the responsibility of the modern state of Turkey,
that was founded by the Mustafa Ataturk who rebelled against the old
Turkish regime that was allegedly responsible.
As for remaking the Turkish people into something other than what
they are, Turkey can and should be adamant and unyielding. Europe is
already a multicultural world, with millions of its citizens
belonging to various religions, cultures and way of life. These
people were invited into Europe and allowed to settle within its
borders.
It is now projected that by the year 2050, Muslim Europeans may
constitute about one fourth of the entire European populations if not
more. The kind of Europe that Turkey may enter by 2014 would no
longer be an exclusive club of nations belonging to a homogenous
culture or way of life. Europe stands to benefit from Turkey’s
membership for this reason as well.

PRESS RELEASE
A.R.F. Shant Student Association
104 N. Belmont Street, Suite 306 Glendale, CA 91204
Tel: 818-462-3006
Fax: 866-578-1056
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: Chris Minassian
October 17, 2005
CATHOLICOS ARAM I MEETS WITH COLLEGE STUDENTS IN LOS ANGELES; STRESSES
IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE, FAITH, AND IDENTITY
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, met
with Los Angeles area college students on Thursday, October 13, at
Glendale Community College (GCC). The Special Student Forum with the
Catholicos was organized by a coalition of local student organizations
chaired by the ARF Shant Student Association (ARF SSA) and comprised
of the Armenian Youth Federation and Armenian Student Associations of
University of California Los Angeles, GCC, and Loyola Marymount
University. His Holiness Aram I, who was accompanied by Archbishop
Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate of the Western Prelacy, discussed
issues of importance to Armenian-American students in local
universities and colleges.
Opening remarks were made by Dr. Armine Hacopian, Clerk of the GCC
Board of Trustees, who greeted the Catholicos and recognized several
public figures in attendance, including Glendale Councilman Ara
Najarian and other City and College officials. ARF SSA Executive
Board Member Krikor Krikorian then made remarks in Armenian, thanking
the Catholicos for his presence and commitment to Armenian youth and
invited His Eminence Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian to the podium to
introduce the Catholicos.
The Archbishop spoke about the education, accolades, and experiences
of the Catholicos. He noted that the Catholicos, who holds multiple
masters degrees and a PhD, is not only a spiritual leader but a
tremendous intellectual. He went on to congratulate the Catholicos
for becoming the first person to be re-elected to the position of
Moderator of the World Council of Churches and welcomed the Catholicos
to the podium.
In his pontifical address to those in attendance, His Holiness Aram I
spoke of the importance of knowledge, faith, and preservation of
identity in society. He stressed the significance of the youth’s
active involvement and responsibility as not only the future leaders
but present leaders of the community. Additionally, the Catholicos
spoke about maintaining cultural characteristics and values in a world
increasingly homogenized by globalization and commercialization.
An open dialog ensued between the Catholicos and the attending
students, during which the Catholicos answered questions on a variety
of topics ranging from spirituality to materialism.
On behalf of the event’s organizing coalition, Levon Baronian, former
president of the CSUN Armenian Student Association and administrator
of the Armenian Network of Student Clubs (), thanked the
Catholicos and Prelate for helping make the event a reality. He then
introduced Dr. Levon Marashlian, Professor of Armenian Studies at GCC,
who concluded the event with his closing remarks.

Glendale News Press
Published October 15, 2005
WRITING THE RIGHT
One sneeze or two, it’s up to you
ANI AMIRKHANIAN
Armenians are superstitious people. The act of warding off evil and keeping
away bad luck is an essential part of life for the most superstitious
Armenian.
Most superstitions have to do with luck. Everyone wants to have good luck
and people take measures to achieve that luck.
I have never been very superstitious. The occasional knocking on wood or
keeping fingers crossed is as far as I’ve gone to have some luck come my
way.
In many cultures, an animal or mythical creature, is a symbol of luck. The
elephant, for example is considered to lucky in Thailand.
The Armenian people consider the “kapoot achk,” or blue eye, lucky. That
doesn’t mean whoever has blue eyes is the luckiest person in the world.
A blue eye charm is hung often on the front mirror of a car or on a chain as
a necklace. The blue eye keeps away the “evil eye” and is to prevent bad
luck from occurring.
Many people actually have more than one blue eye charm. An entire set of
stringed blue eyeballs is also common as a necklace or bracelet.
Other superstitions are a bit more abstract. When traveling, it is always
customary, well, more of a superstition again, to throw water on the path of
the traveler.
My mother is the official “water thrower” in the family. She will stand
holding a glass of water and as soon as the traveler drives away in their
car, she will throw the water after them.
Since water is symbol of life, it also represents purity, as if to say “may
your travels be righteous with God on your side.”
Another superstition has to do with sneezing. This may sound a bit absurd,
but it is one of those superstitions that many Armenians take seriously.
It is always said that two sneezes are better than one. If you sneeze once,
you should follow it with another.
Sneezing twice is particularly important when one is engaged in a
conversation about the future or an upcoming event.
Armenians believe that if you sneeze once your future goal will less likely
be achieved. But a second sneeze will take away all the ills or devastations
that may stand in the way of achieving your goals.
I have relatives who believe deeply in this superstition. They will worry,
and even be alarmed, if the second sneeze does not follow.
During a conversation, it is best to refrain from sneezing, because if one
sneezes, they are expected to have a second one on the way.
I have engaged in conversations with people who have stopped and asked me to
sneeze again.
“Sneeze again, bring another one,” is often the request. The request is
usually followed by a long pause, where they await the second sneeze.
Sneezing becomes a requirement and if one ceases to sneeze for a second
time, a stern look is often returned that translates to “you are doomed.”
So when it comes to Armenian superstitions, it’s helpful to be familiar with
them before entering into an Armenian household.
They provide a glimpse into the culture.
* ANI AMIRKHANIAN is a news assistant. She may be reached at (818) 637-3230

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Oct 10 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
THE PRESS RELEASE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS SERVICE
In the academic year of 2005-2006, there are 236 secondary schools
and colleges instead of the 237 of the previous year. The number of
children at schools is 21 639, having decreased by 325 or 1.5 per
cent since the previous year. This year 2339 children went to school,
having increased by 205 since the previous year. The number of pupils
in each region is: in Stepanakert 7256 (against 7332 last year), 38.2
per cent of the total number of schoolchildren, Askeran region 2657
(2719) 12.3 per cent, Hadrut region 1985 (2037) 9.2 per cent,
Martakert region 2674 (2649) 20.7 per cent, Martuni region 4018
(4105) 18.6 per cent, Shahumian region 537 (552) 2.5 per cent, Shushi
region 810 (799) 3.7 per cent, Kashatagh region 1702 (1771) 7.9 per
cent.

Harold Doan and Associates (press release), CA
Oct 13 2005
EBRD board to Georgia & Armenia
Oct. 12 2005
Press Release – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Directors from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
are on a seven-visit to Georgia and Armenia. They are meeting senior
government officials and business leaders in the respective
countries, as well as investors and representatives of the
international and diplomatic community and civil society.
The EBRD’s board of directors represents the Bank’s 62 public
shareholders, rather than its executive arm, and approves all Bank
projects. The goal of the visit is to learn more about the state of
reforms and transition in the region as the Bank prepares its new
two-year strategy for Armenia, due before the end of 2005. Both
Georgia and Armenia participate in the Bank’s 2004 Early Transition
Countries (ETC) initiative, which aims to stimulate market activity
in the Bank’s seven lowest-income countries of operations by using a
streamlined approach to financing more and smaller projects.
The Bank’s cumulative commitments in Georgia, which is pursuing
structural reform and a large-scale privatization programme, stood at
319.6 million in August 2005. The EBRD’s main strategic orientations
for Georgia focus on the promotion of private-sector activity and
investment through support for domestic and foreign investors, small
and medium-size enterprises to build stability in the power sector
and enhance the investment climate. In Tbilisi, the seven EBRD
directors will meet President Mikheil Saakashvili, Prime Minister
Zurab Nogaideli, National Bank President Roman Gorsiridze and
Parliament Chairwoman Nino Burjanadze.
The Armenian economy continues to perform encouragingly in 2005,
recording a growth rate of 11.7 per cent in the first eight months of
the year, in line with the average of the past four years. Foreign
direct investment inflows were sharply higher in 2004, poverty on the
decline, fiscal performance improving and public debt sustainable.
Total EBRD investment in Armenia was 32.1 million in May 2005. The
EBRD delegation will meet President Robert Kocharyan, Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan and key ministers. The Bank is considering a
variety of new equity investments and cooperation with Armenia’s
strengthening banking sector to bring more financing to smaller
businesses.

;file=article&sid=6387
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Egoyan Rips into Pop Culture Icons in “Where the Truth Lies”

October 15, 2005
In the 1950s, there was no greater entertainment team than manic
comedian Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and suave singer Vince Collins
(Colin Firth). There was also no team with bigger secrets to hide,
including the truth behind how a female corpse managed to turn up in
their hotel room one inconvenient evening. In bringing his adaptation
of Rupert Holmes’ novel, “Where the Truth Lies,” to the screen, Atom
Egoyan follows an ambitious writer’s (Alison Lohman) investigation
into the mystery of a decades-old crime, and in the process once again
explores the many ways humans revise their pasts to salvage their
presents. IFC News’ Dan Persons had an opportunity to speak with the
director: Just a wild guess: The title’s what first attracted you to
the project.
It’s a title that could kind of serve as a guide to a lot of the work
that I’ve done. But I think it was an enormously entertaining and
vivid window into American pop culture that Rupert Holmes provided. I
was delighted by the book and the possibilities, but the latent theme
that the title suggests was compelling as well.
There are several levels to the romanticism in “Where the Truth Lies:”
There’s the otherworldliness of the sequences in the TV studio, but
even when you move out of that environment, you’re dwelling in a
stylized world.
But only because one of the characters, Lanny Morris, is trying to
present that stylized world. He has an agenda with the way he’s trying
to present what his life meant at that time, what his life was geared
towards at the height of his fame. The Kevin Bacon character, in his
voice-over — purportedly writing his autobiography — is trying to
present a version where everything, and anyone, was available to
him. He was this voracious, lascivious, erotic being moving through
countless women, so it behooves his legacy to sustain that.
He does that very meticulously, but we find out that that’s not the
case.
There are obvious parallels between Vince and Lanny and the real-life
team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. What was the line you had to walk
to make the characters stand on their own?
Well, in the book, they’re actually modeled after [Martin and Lewis],
and I found that very distracting. I wanted to create an act that
didn’t exist, but which people felt could have existed. There’s a
whole kind of history of duos that we’ve lost a sense of, because we
don’t have teams anymore in our popular culture. There’s a Freudian
make-up to them, which is based on a sort of ego/id principle: One is
unleashed, very impulsive, and the other is always trying to civilize
and tame him. It’s a recurring sort of construction, and I just
thought, Why don’t we look at this idea of the Englishman, the
ultimate civilizing influence, and how that intersects with American
culture at that time? You did have these people like Noel Coward and
David Niven and Rex Harrison, even Peter Lawford — kind of suave and
the picture of etiquette — trying to tame someone else, trying to
keep a lid on it. That just seemed an interesting way to construct a
team. We worked on that and scrupulously avoided direct references to
Martin and Lewis.
Am I off-base in thinking you don’t have any romantic regard for the
past? I’m certainly fascinated by the role of sentiment in the way we
construct our sense of what the past is about, the ability to
manipulate and present histories that may not have been what they seem
to be, but which have a powerful hold over our subconscious
otherwise. Those can sometimes be romantic constructions, and often I
will create a view of something which seems to be loaded with a
romanticism, only to have that deconstructed, ultimately, just because
the characters are trying to arrive at some sort of clarity. But I’m
also trying to create an atmosphere which is seductive and which draws
us in, so I will use any one of a number of stylistic devices to do
that. So sometimes the music can be very romantic, and there’s a type
of imagery which seems to suggest another world, but my goal is to
arrive at something with as much clarity as possible.
“Where the Truth Lies” opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 14,
rolling out to other cities in subsequent weeks. For more on the film, see the
_official site._ ()
IFC is IFC is a network of _Rainbow Media Holdings LLC_
() ,a subsidiary of _Cablevision Systems
Corporation_ () a network of _Rainbow Media
Holdings LLC_ () ,a subsidiary of
_Cablevision Systems Corporation_ ()

Review: ‘Where the Truth Lies’ Matters
By CHRISTY LEMIRE
.c The Associated Press
AP Movie Critic
The menage a trois that serves as the climax of “Where the Truth
Lies” has prompted a bit of a tizzy since the film screened at Cannes
in May.
The scene – featuring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as
Jerry-and-Dean-type ’50s entertainers and Rachel Blanchard as a hotel
employee who gives new meaning to the term “room service” –
initially was considered racy enough to merit the dreaded NC-17 rating
from the Motion Picture Association of America. Bernardo Bertolucci’s
“The Dreamers” was in a similar quandary last year. It went out with
the NC-17 tag; “Where the Truth Lies,” meanwhile, will appear with
no rating – which filmmakers can opt to do.
After seeing the film, though, you’re left to wonder: Is that all
there is?
Yes, the sex is sexy, but that’s not the point. It’s in no way
shockingly graphic – it’s not like “9 Songs” or “Sex and Lucia.”
Presumably it’s the implication of what these characters are doing
that’s got people all worked up.
Which is a shame. Because there’s a lot more going on in Atom Egoyan’s
film that’s worth thinking about afterward – namely the mood, which is
glitzy and sumptuous; and the performances, which are striking and
even surprising, especially from Firth as the Dean Martin figure.
It’s a joy to watch him play the bad boy after a string of gentlemanly
roles in period pieces and the “Bridget Jones” movies.
And Bacon seems to be channeling Jerry Lewis in full swagger, though
he’s even more effective when his character is long past his prime,
trying to look cool with sideburns and an ascot but sadly aware of the
neediness beneath his bravado.
But here’s something else you may find yourself asking afterward: Is
Egoyan serious?
With this tale of sex, death and deception, which the director adapted
from the novel by Rupert Holmes (yes, the pina colada song guy), he
wallows so devilishly in the conventions of film noir, he approaches
parody. The melodramatic voiceover (courtesy of Alison Lohman as the
intrepid girl reporter), the glamorous and gritty settings, the
obsession with the ugly side of show business – Egoyan takes them all
and whips them up into a fizzy cocktail that’s intoxicating but also
flummoxing.
Part of the problem is his propensity for jumping back and forth in
time, from 1972 Los Angeles to 15 years earlier, when a beautiful
young fan turned up dead in the duo’s hotel suite bathtub after a
drug- and champagne-fueled threesome. Firth’s Vince Collins and
Bacon’s Lanny Morris were never accused in her death, but the event
destroyed their act and their friendship.
Lohman, as ambitious young entertainment reporter Karen O’Connor, is
assigned to write the story of what happened that night. (“And the
girl, Maureen,” she asks Vince intensely during their first meeting,
just as the music swells. “What happened to Maureen O’Flaherty?”)
But she’s doing so at the same time Lanny is working on his memoirs.
Besides leaping around too frequently in time, Egoyan also jarringly
alternates “Rashomon”-style between Lanny’s version of the events,
Vince’s version (as he tells them to Karen) and Karen’s own take on
what happened as she probes deeper.
Of course they all turn out to be unreliable narrators – and as
evidenced in his earlier films, including “Felicia’s Journey,”
Egoyan likes to provide disturbing twists through the revelation of
his characters’ twisted dark sides.
Karen herself gets entangled emotionally with both men, which lands
her in a drug-induced tryst with a pretty blond in an
Alice-in-Wonderland get-up, the lights from the shimmering backyard
pool illuminating their activities in the living room of Vince’s
modern Hollywood Hills mansion.
Sound like something out of “Mulholland Drive?”
Yes, a great deal of “Where the Truth Lies” comes across as vaguely
David Lynchian, both tonally and in the striking, sometimes glowing
visuals. And it all might leave you with the same feeling you get
after one of Lynch’s films: not totally sure about everything you just
saw, but too dazzled to care.
“Where the Truth Lies,” a ThinkFilm release, is not rated but wow –
name it and it’s probably in there: language, nudity and violence,
sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Running time: 107 minutes. Two and a
half stars out of four.

10/14/05 15:08 EDT