by Isabel Jacobs
Michael A. Goorjian is an award-winning American actor, filmmaker, and writer, known for his roles in “David’s Mother” (1994), “SLC Punk!” (1998), its sequel, “Punk’s Dead” (2016) and many other films, television series and theater productions. Goorjian received acclaim as a director for his mock-documentary “Oakland Underground” (1997) and the movie “Illusion” (2004), which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Kirk Douglas.
He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father is Armenian, his grandparents are survivors of the Armenian genocide, an experience that also shapes his latest comedy-drama “Amerikatsi” (Ամերիկացի, 2022). The film centers around Charlie Bakhchinyan, played by Goorjian himself, an Armenian-American who repatriates to Soviet Armenia after World War II. Arrested for the crime of wearing a tie, he ends up in prison.
“Amerikatsi” won various awards and became an instant classic in Armenia where it was selected as the country’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. On the occasion of the first Armenian Film Festival London, we talked with Goorjian about shooting in Armenia during pandemic and war, repatriation to Soviet Armenia in the 1940s, Armenian diasporic identities and the culture of the dinner table.
Tell us a bit more about how you came to this film. Maybe you can talk a little about the process of making “Amerikatsi”?
We started shooting at the beginning of 2020. I think we started in early March, just before the pandemic started. It was pretty wild! Everybody was crazy for everybody. In Armenia the pandemic hit a little later, so we could see what was happening in other countries and people were shutting things down. And so we were probably about ten days into shooting; we were in Gyumri at the time. And I remember we had a big meeting with the cast and crew and asking: do people want to continue or what do we want to do? And a lot of the crew thought we should stop. And because of the travel ban, Hovik Keuchkerian, who played Tigran, wanted to go back to Spain, and we had only shot half of his scenes, so he left. And then the Russians left.
And I thought maybe I would never finish the film because, you know, it is so hard to put a project together to begin with. And then we waited, and I think it probably took two months where we were in quarantine, everybody had to stay in their apartments. And then eventually the government let us shoot portions of the film at a time. So we shot all of the stuff in the prison cell with me, it was the first stuff we were allowed to shoot because there was only a few people working. They didn’t want a lot of people gathering, so… And then, a month or two later, they said, okay, you can shoot this. And then again. So it took a long time. We finished in July, I believe. And then the war in Artsakh started, maybe a month later, at the end of August. So that was crazy, a lot going on.
An American returning to Armenia looking for the “real” Armenia. So how did you come across the topic? How did you find these stories about Americans repatriates moving back to Armenia during the Stalin era?
Well, I had read an article. I was learning about repatriation because in 2018 the Armenian Revolution was happening and I was watching this on the news and because of that I saw a lot of Armenians going back to Armenia. Young Armenians repatriating, basically. That’s when I started reading about repatriation and doing research from there.
There was a scholar in Fresno who I had reached out to. Basically, her work was all on repatriation in this period in particular, when Stalin had invited Armenians to go back. So I talked to her and then, very quickly, once I started asking around, I met with quite a few different Armenians, mostly descendants of people who repatriated, and then some people who were part of the initial wave. From the United States it was only about 300 Armenians. But from France, Egypt, Lebanon, it was around 150,000. Many Armenians came in different waves, but in this particular period there were only few that went. And it was a disaster.
As you wonderfully show in the movie! It is also a comedy but a dark one, both the historical background and the set up. Most of the movie is set in prison. Is this based on a true story?
Yes and no. The core story about a prisoner watching someone in an apartment building is based on a story someone told me. But it was tricky to take it and put it into this time period. There are some stuff in the film that is purposely fictional, the whole tone of the film really. It is meant to be more of a fable, less of a historical film, and part of that gave me the freedom to make a film that is not based on one person’s story or anything like that. But also at the time people were arrested. A lot of times they didn’t go to prison. They went to a building on Nalbandyan street that had a basement where they interrogated you. And then you got sent right to Siberia. Right away you were sent to Siberia!
So there are some scenes in the film where some Armenians from Armenia are brought to this prison at the same time with repatriates. That is fictionalized. But you know, potentially it could have happened. But that was what I needed, an environment where I could build this relationship between someone stuck in prison looking out of their window.
You also act the main role, Charlie, which is quite remarkable, to both act and direct. So how was this? How did you develop this character? And how was it to work with such a diverse crew around this character?
I’ve had people even criticize and ask me: “why is he so optimistic? Nobody is like that.” And I said, well, you know, my grandfather kind of was! And a lot of Americans were, especially at this time. In America in the 1940s, 1950s, post-war, that was the American spirit!
Charlie can’t really be a real person. He’s not a real person. He’s a caricature. He’s a clown in a way. This is why movies with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin can sometimes be very profound because they have this Holy Fool. You need someone who is slightly outside of reality to help allow people to see the situation they are in. The character needed to be so positive for the film to work.
And also, as you said, it is a sort of fairy tale or parable. Not hyperrealism but there is something very real as well. It‘s an Armenian film, but it‘s also an American film. So my last question would be where you see yourself with this? What is “Armenian” about your film?
Other cultures definitely deal with exile as well but Armenians especially. The majority of Armenians do not live in the country. We’re in the diaspora. So we’re Armenian, French Armenians, we’re British Armenians, we’re American Armenians, we’re Lebanese Armenians.
And there’s an internal question in everyone about identity. What does it mean to be Armenian? Am I Armenian enough? Am I not Armenian? With the film I have traveled all over and met Armenians in the Midwest and in other countries. And in Armenia itself. The questioning around what does it mean to be Armenian is part of being Armenian and especially within the diaspora. There is really two side to the film itself. There’s Charlie’s side, and then there’s Tigran’s side, the guard who is in the apartment. And Charlie’s side really reflects what, I think, many Armenians in the diaspora are feeling, a longing for home, longing for… you know, we’ve been displaced. Both physically and spiritually.
There’s a sense that I came from somewhere. And there’s a wanting to know it, wanting to be associated with it, identifying with it. There’s a romanticizing of it that many Armenians do. For example, the idea of going back to Hayastan. And then they go and they think, wait a minute, this is not what it’s like! That relationship to both the land and the culture and identity, there’s a longing relationship. And the film also has Tigran’s side which is the experience of Armenian Armenians. The other part of Armenians, which weren’t displaced but became part of the Soviet Union. Their experience is something that in the diaspora we don’t spend too much time thinking about or know much about.
They had a very traumatic experience as well. They had their culture stripped from them, like so many of the Soviet states. You’re not Armenian anymore. You’re a Soviet. Which was essentially Russian. And then the Russification, when people changed their names from Goorjian to Gurdjieff, for instance. Or no more church. There was suppression of culture. So that side of the story is just as important, I think. But ultimately, it’s all a struggle around: What does it mean to be Irish? What does it mean to be British?
And I think there’s a lot of things that you could say that are Armenian in the film. Music, food, language. Ultimately, what we kind of nailed in on in the film is the dinner table. The culture of being around the table, that felt the most, if anything, Armenian. That’s Armenia! That’s what it means to be Armenian.
Thank you very much for taking the time speaking to us.
Absolutely!
