Epic ‘Promise’ reveals horror of Armenian genocide
A dramatization of the Armenian genocide set in Turkey in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, directed by Irish filmmaker Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”), “The Promise” is a throwback to the epics of the second half of the 20th century. It has a lot on its plate and almost as much to offer.
The film begins with a voice-over by protagonist Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac), a young apothecary in an Armenian village in the Turkish mountains, who dreams of becoming a doctor and uses the betrothal payment of the family of fiancee Maral (Angela Sarafyan) to fund studies in Constantinople. Bidding good-bye to his beloved mother Marta (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and father Mustafa (Numan Acar), Mikael arrives in the almost modern metropolis and meets cosmopolitan, Paris-raised dancer Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), whose lover is the dashing Associated Press reporter Chris Myers (Christian Bale).
Myers is aware of the Turkish government’s notso-secret plan to eliminate its Armenian population — “a tumor,” according to one military leader — and after Turkey aligns itself with Germany, following the outbreak of World War I, that policy begins to take effect horribly. Villages burn. Lovers and families are violently torn apart. The Turkish military attacks its own unarmed civilians. Myers sends telegraph dispatches telling America and the world what is going on to his great peril. Mikael and Ana fall in love and are separated in ways that will remind some of David Lean’s similarly sweeping, if also more dramatically solid adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s Russian Revolution-set 1957 novel “Doctor Zhivago,” with its physicianpoet protagonist Yuri Zhivago (the late Omar Sharif).
Written by George and American screenwriter Robin Swicord (“Memoirs of a Geisha”), “The Promise” has impressive historical heft and sweep, even for a film with a $100 million budget. Scenes depicting Mikael’s time toiling as a slave laying train tracks in the Taurus Mountains are very impressive. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“Blue Jasmine”) does a wonderful job bringing early 20th century Turkey in both its glory and its infamy to spectacular life. In the supporting cast, Tom Hollander, James Cromwell, Rade Serbedzija and Jean Reno lend gravitas and presence. Marwan Kenzari is terrific as a pasha’s son and playboy- turned- reluctant hero, and Isaac and Le Bon are moving as the war-torn lovers. “The Promise” may feel flimsy in its first half, but its scenes of hardship, loss and wartime atrocities hit hard and should serve to caution some viewers in these belligerent times. “The Promise” is not without flaw, but it is a powerful experience.
(“The Promise” contains war violence and gruesome images.)