In 2014 the First World War became 100 years old. In the years after 2014 several films about this war were released. The balance between films about the First- and Second World War became a bit less one sided.
There was however one aspect of the First World War that remained out of sight, and that was the Armenian genocide. "Aurora's sunrise" makes up for this omission.
The Armenian genocide began with blaming the Armenians for the failure of the Caucasian campaign in which the Ottoman empire attacked Russia in the First World War. However, the causes lie in a more distant past with the slowly declining Ottoman empire and the religious tensions that accompanied this decline. The genocide proceeded in two steps. First the men were killed. In the second step the women were forced into death marches across the Syrian desert, which at that time still belonged to the Ottoman empire. Many young girls were sold into prostitution c.q. Harems. Estimates of the number of casualties vary from 600.000 to 1.500.000.
"Aurora's sunrise" tells the story of Arshaluys Mardiganian who survived the genocide and escaped to America. The film not only tells the story of the genocide but also of the memoirs of the genocide Arshaluys (who became known in America as Aurora, Roman Godess of dawn) wrote and the movie "Auction of souls" (1919, Oscar Apfel) that was based on these memoirs. In so doing the film also touches on the way Hollywood exploited the story and the way the World chooses to look in another direction soon after the First World War ended. In Turkey the Armenian genocide is still not recognized, at least not as being a genocide. Only on 24 April 2021 did president Joe Biden officialy recognize the Armenian genocide.
"Aurora's sunrise" is made up of different sources such as 20 minutes of surviving footage of the lost film "Auction of souls" and images of interviews with Arshaluys Mardiganian at (very) old age. The gaps are filled with animation. This last source makes the film somehow comparable with "Waltz with Bashir" (2008, Ari Folman).
A problem for every documentary-maker is the reliablilty of the source material. Director Inna Sahakyan had this problem with each of the sources of material. Animation can be manipulated, the Hollywood movie "Auction of souls" was partly sensasionalist and how reliable is the memory of a more than 90 years old?
Sahakyan handled this problem in my view in a very honest way. The most cruel things were not showed in animation, at least not when they were not corroborated by the other two sources. When the memmories of Arshaluys Mardiganian seemed to be more influenced by the movie than by real events they were not used.
All in all "Aurora's sunrise" is a very honest and brave monument to a part of the First World War that had been forgotten by cinema untill now.
There was however one aspect of the First World War that remained out of sight, and that was the Armenian genocide. "Aurora's sunrise" makes up for this omission.
The Armenian genocide began with blaming the Armenians for the failure of the Caucasian campaign in which the Ottoman empire attacked Russia in the First World War. However, the causes lie in a more distant past with the slowly declining Ottoman empire and the religious tensions that accompanied this decline. The genocide proceeded in two steps. First the men were killed. In the second step the women were forced into death marches across the Syrian desert, which at that time still belonged to the Ottoman empire. Many young girls were sold into prostitution c.q. Harems. Estimates of the number of casualties vary from 600.000 to 1.500.000.
"Aurora's sunrise" tells the story of Arshaluys Mardiganian who survived the genocide and escaped to America. The film not only tells the story of the genocide but also of the memoirs of the genocide Arshaluys (who became known in America as Aurora, Roman Godess of dawn) wrote and the movie "Auction of souls" (1919, Oscar Apfel) that was based on these memoirs. In so doing the film also touches on the way Hollywood exploited the story and the way the World chooses to look in another direction soon after the First World War ended. In Turkey the Armenian genocide is still not recognized, at least not as being a genocide. Only on 24 April 2021 did president Joe Biden officialy recognize the Armenian genocide.
"Aurora's sunrise" is made up of different sources such as 20 minutes of surviving footage of the lost film "Auction of souls" and images of interviews with Arshaluys Mardiganian at (very) old age. The gaps are filled with animation. This last source makes the film somehow comparable with "Waltz with Bashir" (2008, Ari Folman).
A problem for every documentary-maker is the reliablilty of the source material. Director Inna Sahakyan had this problem with each of the sources of material. Animation can be manipulated, the Hollywood movie "Auction of souls" was partly sensasionalist and how reliable is the memory of a more than 90 years old?
Sahakyan handled this problem in my view in a very honest way. The most cruel things were not showed in animation, at least not when they were not corroborated by the other two sources. When the memmories of Arshaluys Mardiganian seemed to be more influenced by the movie than by real events they were not used.
All in all "Aurora's sunrise" is a very honest and brave monument to a part of the First World War that had been forgotten by cinema untill now.