Ararat

Ararat is a 2002 film by Atom Egoyan about the Armenian Genocide, an event that is denied to this day by the government of Turkey. Instead of presenting a straightforward narrative account of the genocide, the film examines the nature of truth and how it can be represented on film.

- Taken from Wikipedia

This film is based around an Armenian descendent, Raffi, who grew up in the U. S.. Raffi’s mother is an art historian of sorts who goes around and gives lectures on an Armenian artist, Arshile Gorky. Raffi’s girlfriend/stepsister disagrees with alot of her views on many of gorky’s paintings, especially one called A boy and his mother. This painting actually started out as a photograph taken of of Gorky and his mother before the Armenian genocide occured in his area.
The movie touches on many topics of discussion and importances. One being the director’s(Atom Egoyan) background and why he felt it neccessary to produce this movie. He ends up recruiting Raffi’s mother has a History Consultant because of her vast knowledge of Gorky and the Armenian genocide. Raffi is in turn hired has the driver of a truck. During a scene shooting, Atom is confronted by one of his actors and is told that he does not believe that the genocide really happened. Atom is, in a sense, forced to swallow this information with a smile and pretend to appreciate the mans opinion.
Another, major aspect of the movie would be when Raffi actually goes to Ararat to see for himslef the devastation left behind. When he does he ends up bribing a guard to take him up a military road and in exchange he will bring 4 film cans back into the U.S.. Raffi believes that film is in the cans and can’t even imagine it being anything else. When he gets to customs, however, he is stopped. Raffi ends up giving the customs agent the run around about the movie. How his mother helped produce it and why he was over there and what he did and what it all means to him.
When he gets back around to the cans, he tells the agent that he believes there is film in the cans. The agent, on the other hand, knows that there is no film in the cans and slowly milks Raffi to believe this as well. Raffi, however, won’t believe it, can’t believe it because his conscious will not let him. He can’t let himself belief that such a thing could happen, his mind set can not accept that. He firmly pushes that there is film in the cans and slowly convinces the agent that he has no idea that there is anything other than film in the cans. The agent, finally realizing what is going on, opens the cans to find cocaine in them. He ends up letting Raffi go, not because he pities him, rather because he realizes that Raffi is seriously innocent and was bilked into this because he had to see this place and get this information in order to set everything right with himself. To give himself some ground to settle on, Raffi had to do this and in the end he was bilked into this crime.