Customer Reviews

Calendar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

CALENDAR tells the story of a Canadian photographer (played by the director) who travels to his native Armenia for a calendar project. His wife (played by Egoyan's real-life partner, Arsinee Khanjian)accompanies him and tensions arise as her love for Armenia conflicts with her husband's estrangement from it. The film shifts between past and present, between scenes from the trip to Armenia and scenes back in Canada, after the break-up. A Canadian/Armenian/German (!) co-production that cost less than $80,000 to make, Calendar has never received wide distribution and is still largely unknown, even among Egoyan's admirers. That being said, it may be the director's finest effort to date. The intimate observations of marital breakdown in Calendar may not even begin to approach the grand-scale tragedy of Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, but it is no less effective than those works as an innovatively structured narrative that shrewdly withholds and dispenses information. Like the aforementioned Egoyan projects (released a few years after Calendar and both breakthroughs for the director), Calendar makes the most of cutting back and forth between past and present and also employs video footage more extensively than any of Egoyan's other films. The video footage is weaved seamlessly into the narrative and provides an effective commentary on the photographer's detachment from reality and his distancing from the past.

All this might make the film sound extremely heavy and pretentious, but the director succeeds at making his points without being overly oblique or esoteric. In fact, what really deserves praise in this film is the sly humour that is sometimes missing in Egoyan's other films. While the film never downplays the dramatic issues at hand, scenes in Calendar almost always have some rich undercurrent of very subtle and sophisticated humour that rewards repeated viewings and exploration. It is arguably the director's most directly humane film.

With its stunning photography, suggestive, dream-like editing and impeccable acting, Calendar is an intricate Chinese-box narrative that merits analysis, but thankfully, does not demand it. Egoyan has crafted an elegant, poignant film that has both immediacy and long-lasting dramatic reverberations.

Atom Egoyan is a truly revolutionary director and he proves himself once again with CALENDAR, his first great film (although the ones before have been quite good)...the scenery is magnificant, the performances are so real (wife Arsinee Khanjian gives one of her best performances) and the directing style is fresh and unique (also keep in mind this is 1993)...The simple plot (engaging and absorbing as in all Egoyan films) does not unfold chronologically, which is just one of the fascinating aspects of the film...it truly is dazzling, and the mostly improvised dialogue is spectacular...(annoyed at the seemingly endless footage of the flock of sheep near the beginning? You'll appreciate it in the end.)Egoyan's films always manage to touch me in ways I never expect. That might have a lot to do with the fact that I am Armenian and a lot of his films deal with being an Armenian, but I never truly appreciated my heritage until viewing ARARAT, CALENDAR, and NEXT OF KIN. What a wonderful movie this is...what an remarkable director Egoyan is...can't wait to see what he comes up with next..

In "Calendar", writer/director Atom Egoyan documents the deteriorating relationship between a man of Armenian ancestry and his wife, who is truly Armenian. The man is a photographer on assignment to photograph Armenian churches for a calendar. He is accompanied by a driver with aspirations to be a tour guide, and his wife serves as his translator.

If it is true that any auteur has a motivating idea behind much of his/her career, than Egoyan's center is voyeurism. Egoyan lays his cards on the table in this lesser-known film, directly examining the way voyeurism affects both the perceiver and the perceived. As if to further reinforce the theme, he places himself in the role of the photographer. The land of his ancestry, its beautiful locales and churches, and his wife seduce him with imagery, rather than with contact. It is a willful choice on the part of Egoyan and his character, for he remains unable to truly connect with any of it.

As with other Egoyan films I have seen ("Speaking Parts", "Exotica", and "The Sweet Hereafter"), much of "Calendar" is deliberately paced, and beautifully shot. His use of soundtrack music is stirring and emotional as usual, yet remains subtle enough to avoid being invasive to the viewer. For one reason or another, this film resonated with me more than any of his other films.

As usual with this marvelous director, you will most likely not understand this film until you are deeply into it, and I find Egoyan's director's commentary to be invaluable.

This film is nominally about a photographer (Atom Egoyan) and his wife (Egoyan's real-life spouse, Arsinee Khanjian), who travel to Armenia to photograph churches for a calendar, the wife acting as translator to the Armenian guide (Ashot Adamian). During this process, the wife and guide fall in love, right under the uncomprehending photographer's nose. Back home after she has remained in Armenia, the photographer watches his film of the trip to try and discover when the two fell in love. This description is much too linear for an Egoyan film. It will reveal itself to you in layers, as do all his works. You will constantly be feeling little ah-ha! moments of understanding, which is the element I really enjoy about this director. He is like Hal Hartley with a point.

One reviewer feels that the film is too autobiographical, but in his commentary Egoyan laughs about this assumption being made by his friends and others when it previewed, their assumption reinforced by Arsinee's absence -- but it turns out she was at home, unable to travel due to pregnancy -- in what was a happy time for the couple. I think that speaks to how capable this director is at pulling viewers into his fiction.

Egoyan reveals that he had not intended to play the photographer, but for technical reasons had to. He's not an actor and knows it, but I think he did a fine job. The story is intimate, but issues of detachment and isolation resound here, as in his other works.

This film may be too quiet for non-indie film lovers, but for Egoyan fans or those who are fascinated by people, it will be a treasure that will stay with you a while.

DVD extras include the commentary track, Egoyan's biography/filmography, stills, and two interviews with the director -- one 7-1/2 minutes, the other 52 minutes. The film can be heard in English (with English subtitles for the Armenian), and subtitles are available in English or French.

Our duty as Armenians is to Remember and pass the memory to next generation and make the tragedy known to the world, this movie does it the best way... excellent, something to have at home and watch it over and over..it is good acting, excellent plot, love and history...

I greatly enjoy Atom Egoyan's films, usually. I've followed his work since the release of SPEAKING PARTS and have seen most of his major films. I have found things to like about all of them - except this one. CALENDAR is a torturously self-conscious reflection on the ways an obsession with documenting reality can come between a filmmaker and those around him. The film has the FEEL of the confessional; to me, it seems very likely -- though I don't know for sure -- that Egoyan and Khanjian were playing, basically, THEMSELVES, and that the movie was meant as some sort of therapy for them -- Egoyan flailing around in his self-hate for being so afraid of experiencing an unmediated reality, wanting to see everything through the camera -- even his wife's attraction for another man, for example. In-between footage of Egoyan and Khanjian's trip to Armenia, we get lots of shots of Egoyan sitting around his apartment alone, contriving dates with women he doesn't really care much about and brooding over the memory of his failings with his wife. Maybe that sounds appealing to some of you -- sounds raw and daring, a filmmaker picking the scabs on his conscience aside and showing the viewer the throbbing wounds beneath; I personally found it embarrassing and somewhat distasteful. The obvious comparison, I suppose -- the film most like this one, that I've seen -- is DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY; but that movie only pretends to document a filmmaker's unhealthy dependancy on the camera-eye, and so never descends into the sort of psychological exhibitionism CALENDAR reeks of... If you're exploring his less-known work, or just looking for intellectually stimulating cinema, FAMILY VIEWING and SPEAKING PARTS are both incredible films. CALENDAR is one to avoid. (Sorry, Atom!)

Atom Egoyan's the type of filmmaker who knows how to sift the pathos and anger out of the most banal of actions, letting his audience wait and wait to find out the events the characters of his movies are already overly familiar with. That creates a certain voyeuristic hypnoticism in his storytelling, and although he hadn't made his back to back masterpieces Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter just yet, his rapt stoytelling was in full effect in Calendar. You get the sense of this filmmaker in every shot - what you may see is a long drive past a field of sheep, but what you feel are the eyes of the filmmaker, watching, in horror, as his hubris eclipses his life. At the moment you realize he's watching his wife slip away from him even as his artistic goals are realized, it's as though the frame itself changes focus, and we're treated to an entirely new way to enter a character's perspective. That's because Egoyan creates a new type of 3-dimensional filmmaking here. He juggles time, space, emotion, and our fields of vision with galvanic ease - because the character you don't see is the one that matters most.

I had hoped I would learn more about Armenian church history in the earliest days of christianity. I like Atom Egoyan's films, they are very distinctive compared to American films, always thought provoking. I found this one to be somewhat disturbing, yet it is good. And though historical details are lacking, Armenia's history has been a disruptive one at that, witnessed by the many ruins of churches which dot this ancient pastoral countryside and by the fractured familial relationships that result from endless unrest. Indeed, the films of the churches in Armenia was filmed on site in 10 days with an escort of soldiers and filmed with home video calibre equipment in 1992 or so. There are 13 characters in the film, none with names. The three principal characters are Egoyan and his wife, in real life, Arsinee Khanjian, and the interpreter who comes between them breaking up their marriage, which painfully he must witness while filming, documenting the event forever, at least for the length of the movie. Love is such an intense emotion, 'stronger than death', which Egoyan's character must grapple with the loss of for an entire year as he turns each page of the calendar remembering the events and conversations at those moments. Attempting to forget his wife, he entertains 10 "guests", girlfriends, at his home in Toronto, yet is somehow constantly reminded of his separation and loss. It reminded me of Groundhog Day, yet in the end, Egoyan doesn't get the girl like Bill Murray does. The unidentified foster child of Egoyan in this film, in addition to Egoyan's separation from his wife, is reminiscent of Gabriel Bagradian's family in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, in that they are split apart as a family. I gave the movie four stars just because I found the story too emotionally intense for me. It was very frustrating to see Egoyan suffer as he did, thinking why doesn't he quit tormenting himself, yet there had been a strong bond between he and his wife and through his work. I think this movie has a lot to say about the power of image in evoking powerful human emotions. We are very influenced by what we choose to see and hear, yet, in Egoyan's case, it seems he is somehow hostage to this situation; he has no free will to forget his betrayal until the last day of the year and the last phone call from his wife.

I have become a fan of Egoyan's work over the years, including both his early art films and more recent commercial works. I looked forward to seeing Calendar, especially after spending 5 months in Armenia on assignment, but came to find the film to be overly indulgent and ultimately obsessively redundant. It's a visually beautiful, slow moving movie, but the dialogue and plot progression soon become tedious, and I struggled to get through the final 30 minutes. I appreciate Egoyan's nontraditional use of storytelling structure, as well as the integration of film and video technique. As well, his multi-language, multi-ethnic approach to demonstrate a stagnant romantic life of the main character is especially effective.
Still, I'm not drawn into the triangled relationship among the three characters, and find Egoyan's use of dialogue tedious at best. Arsinee Khanjian is as talented as ever, and I am of the opinion that she has one of the finest emotive voices in film today. Unfortunately, Calendar is a rather poor vehicle for her, and I have come to appreciate Egoyan as a more complete filmmaker when he removes himself from the screen and focuses on directing/editing. Within the body of Egoyan's work, Calendar is still relevant, but as a stand alone story, I can't say too many good things. If you like films focused on the complexity of relationships that grow at snail's pace, Calendar may be for you...

The foreign languages in Calendar represents a world of immediate and authentic and real, uncalculated, uncategorized, or unanalyzed feeling. English, which is the only language which the male protagonist knows, represents the cultural parameters of the New World: utiliatarian, organizaed about doing things and doing them efficiently, and disengaged from any kind of here and now viscerality. All of the women in Calendar speak other langugages and they represent not merely other languages and backgrounds, but also a richer, more real, more authentically emotional, romantic, human, and passionate reality. The "star" of Calendar doesn't have an idiom of expression except that of a new world society in which doing and accomplishing and making and showing have all the value and the needs of people as spirits is not only ignored, but are also inexpressible.

That spiritual paucity of new world existence is explored by Egoyan through his own ethnicity, background, and source culture. The man in that film lost something in being raised in Canada and doesn't know what it is or how to get it back. He only senses that the Armenian guide he is filming with his wife has something to give his wife that he will never have.

This is a very brave, experimental movie which works well. The pacing is even and the scenes appear in a very precise manner.