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Film Review: Aurora’s Sunrise (2022) by Inna Sahakyan

One of the more compelling productions on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to date

This weekend, silent film star Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian will return to LA – though this time, in animated form. “Aurora's Sunrise,” the first Armenian animated documentary to date, will make its North American premiere at the GKIDS-sponsored Festival. This is only the latest of the production's many laurels. Earlier, it competed at Annecy, the world's oldest festival dedicated to animated image. In its home country, “Aurora's Sunrise” reaped the coveted Silver Apricot at Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival. Now, it will compete for Armenia on an international scale as the national official submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. 

In content and in form, “Aurora's Sunrise” feels like a natural ambassador for the Armenian state. From the get-go, the intro reveals that Mardiganian had seen herself responsible to spread the word of Armenian Genocide in the US. She inspired, starred, and promoted a silent film, “Auction of Souls” (1919), about her own deportation, exile, and escape in the then-Ottoman Empire. In a cruel twist of fate, however, only 18 minutes of the film exist today. Director thus takes it upon herself to revive Mardiganian's lost legend. Through a mix of the surviving 1919 footage, a late 20th-century interview, and digital animation, Sahakyan paints a fuller picture of Mardiganian's life for and beyond the silver screen. 

It's hard to say who is making the film about whom here, though. Sahakyan seems to step into Mardiganian's shoes through her nesting doll of (auto) biography. Through Arpi Petrossian's compelling voice-acting, Sahakyan tells the story from first-person; she recollects Mardiganian's life as Mardiganian herself has recollected it in the past. This perspectival slip ties Sahakyan's neatly tied archival materials together, as they are all Mardiganian's own testimonials iterated in different forms. There is an occasional aesthetic jolt, however, especially when “Aurora's Sunrise” transitions from “Auction” to its own footage. The frenetic pace of the early 20th century Hollywood spectacle come at odds with the dreamy movements of the 21st; the sharp black-and-white clashes with the painterly brushstrokes of digital imaging. 

In the switching between the two movies, the difference feels the most tangible by the characters' gravitas on-screen. In “Auction,” the figures bounce about like many a silent film, commanded by the uneven frame rates of the hand-cranked camera. In the animated sequences of “Sunrise,” however, the characters look more like paper dolls. They are naturalistically rendered – rotoscoped sometimes, even – but their movements are more restrained. The characters limit themselves to a simple turning of the head, a pose struck here and there. To this end, they are more akin to an Alphonse Mucha illustration than they are to the fantastical plasticity of Pixar. As a result, the animated character cast feel more flimsy than their live-action counterparts. They underscore the fragility of the human body, one made of paper limbs that are easily shattered by the winds of change.

Despite the limitations in character animation, the Impressionist-esque backgrounds look painstakingly detailed. Perhaps this is why Sahakyan remains largely realist in scope. The character realism balances out the occasional artistic flourish; the occasional glance into the archive grounds the viewer in the story's verity. This also perhaps could be due to Sahakyan's own production challenges — after all, this is her (and her studio's, ) first foray into animated film. In addition, Bars Media revealed that all of the men on staff were on the front lines of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 2020. The haunts of Mardiganian's war linger over “Aurora's Sunrise.” Art seems to imitate life, once again.

Despite the intensely patriotic nature of “Aurora's Sunrise” content and production, the movie also received a considerable amount of international help from its co-producers in Germany and Lithuania. This again seems fitting of the largely international storyline, where Mardiganian persists through shifting national borderlands. From her beginnings in Chmshgatasak to the Anatolian plains to Tblisi and finally to the USA, her whirlwind world tour unfolds like an epic. In only 96 minutes, Mardiganian's story entertains, exhausts, but ultimately relieves the viewer with its end.

Everything considered, “Aurora's Sunrise” is one of the more compelling productions on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to date. Like many other animated documentaries, it explores the absent archive through the construction of illustrated footage. Unlike many others, however, it goes beyond to make a statement about testimony. After all, “Aurora's Sunrise” is a film about a film (“Auction of Souls”) that is not really about a film ( herself). Just as Arshaluys mentions when she watches herself on screen, autobiography and biography blend into one. In this way, “Aurora's Sunrise” self-reflexively contemplates the concealment and revelation of truth. In so doing, carries Mardiganian's message about the Armenian Genocide to North America. I, for one, am interested to see how the film plays out further on Mardiganian's final home ground.

“Aurora's Sunrise” will make its North American premiere on October 23 in Animation Is Film

About the author

Grace Han

In a wave of movie-like serendipity revolving around movies, I transitioned from studying early Italian Renaissance frescoes to contemporary cinema. I prefer to cover animated film, Korean film, and first features (especially women directors). Hit me up with your best movie recs on Twitter @gracehahahan !

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