‘The Promise’ Caught Up in Genocide Denial Maelstrom

By Bruce Kirkland 

TORONTO, Canada (The Toronto Sun)—The new historical drama “The Promise,” which just made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), has now been caught up in a maelstrom of denial about the Armenian Genocide.

A still photo from 'The Promise'
A still photo from ‘The Promise’

As I write this on Sept. 12, 10,291 people have voted on the film on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), most of them giving wretched ratings that stupidly claim that “The Promise” is a terrible movie. But the truth is, most of those people have not seen the film. Only a fraction of that 10,000-plus—and thousands more expected to attack the film in the coming hours, days and months because of Turkish denial that the genocide ever happened—could have possibly seen the film at its two TIFF screenings so far.

So this is all about politics, even though Irish filmmaker Terry George has been trying to emphasize the romance in his opus. “The Promise” features Christian Bale, as an American journalist, and Oscar Isaac, as an Armenian medical student. Both men love the same woman in the Ottoman Empire during the cataclysmic events of World War I. Those events are all real, all documented, and include scenes of mass murders of Armenians by Turks, George said. But the romantic story is fiction.

“That’s the core of the film,” George told a TIFF press conference on Monday about the romance. “I want audiences to go to it for that entertainment experience. We’re hoping that we have a good old-fashioned love story going here.”

Despite that position, George obviously knows that the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is a hot-button topic, one that he is unafraid of. George brought “Hotel Rwanda,”, an African genocide story, to TIFF in 2004.

George said that the Armenian situation is complicated. “There is the political influence of the Turkish government which has, over the course of a century, managed to stifle and repress and deny this event. And today their strategic importance is greater than ever and this is a touchstone for them. Any time that the Armenian Genocide is mentioned, whether it be the centenary or a film like this, there is immediately a barrage of denial,” George said, adding “[T]his is not a question… The vast majority of historical study has determined that this was a planned attempt to wipe out the Armenian nation. And we need to get beyond that diversionary discussion to why. Why did it happen and how do we move on from that and how do we reconcile these two nations again?… Let’s bring the discussion out in the open.”

Guest Contributor

Guest Contributor

Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles or press releases written and submitted by members of the community.

1 Comment

  1. As long as the Armenian-hating racist megalomaniac Erdogan is in charge in Turkey, I hold little hope that we will see an end to the diversionary discussions from him and his like-minded Turkish supporters. Let us remember that Erdogan has said time and again that the worst thing anyone could call him is an Armenian. Our very best, world class history scholars, Armenian and non-Armenian, have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was indeed an Armenian Genocide. These scholars have also explained at length why the AG happened. I like to think that the truth eventually always comes out, but I’m afraid that the hysterical, spontaneous rants of “Turkish Pride” will impede any reconciliation between Turks and Armenians for the indefinite future. This apparent impasse is very discouraging and frustrating, because every one would benefit if the Turks would own up to the crimes of their forebears and pay reparations for the murder of 1.5 million Armenians and the theft of Armenian property. Modern Turkey is built on stolen land and on the bones of Armenians. The Turks need to “come clean” once and for all so that both peoples can move forward toward constructive reconciliation. Turkey needs to take the high road vis-a-vis the Armenians, as Germany has. 101 years is more than long enough to wait.

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