THE PROMISE is a would-be historical epic in the Hollywood mould, seemingly inspired by the look and feel of the likes of THE ENGLISH PATIENT. The main story tells of a love story between a beautiful woman, a medical student, and a journalist, but this merely exists in order to depict one of the most controversial events of the 20th century: the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks. Turkey continue to deny that such a genocide ever took place - indeed, for them, this film is a work of fiction, a piece of western propaganda at best. Nonetheless it's shocking, moving, and harrowing, particularly in the latter half of the production. The romantic stuff I could have done without, but there's no denying that this is the kind of story that needs to be told, and Isaac, Bale, and Le Bon are up to the telling.

It's the Ottoman Empire on the eve of WWI. Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) is an Armenian who lives in a mixed town. His family doesn't have the money to send him to study medicine in Constantinople. He makes a promise to Maral for the dowry from her father. He attends medical school with support from a wealthy uncle. He befriends Ana Khesarian (Charlotte Le Bon) and her American reporter friend Chris Myers (Christian Bale). As the war begins, his well-connected Muslim school friend Emre saves him from conscription but anti-Armenian fever sweeps over the military.

This is controversial history under dispute. Veracity of true history is difficult at the best of times. This is beyond my abilities but the movie also runs into the same problem as Pearl Harbor. It's harrowing history with a romantic triangle jammed into it. This one is even a romantic quadrangle. It grinds down the start with the melodrama. His marriage is wholly unnecessary and detracts from the larger epic. There is serious history being traversed but a lot of it is convenient. This important story needs more skill, not less in story telling. The level of difficulty is high and this is nowhere close.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is one of the forgotten moments of history. I learned about it by accident while reading a list of genocidal leaders (such as Hitler and Stalin) and it mentioned the Turks who massacred the Armenians. Indeed, Hitler was convinced that no one would remember his actions, citing the lack of attention paid to the Armenian Genocide.

A movie that focused on the genocide was Atom Egoyan's "Ararat". Now comes "The Promise". Reading that the movie focuses on a relationship set against the background of the genocide, one might assume that it's a sappy love story. But it's not. It stays serious in its focus, showing how the Ottomans viewed the Armenians (some of the things that the Ottomans said about the Armenians sounded very much like what the Nazis said about Jews). The protagonist merely made a promise and sought to keep it no matter what happened. And some terrible things happened. To crown everything, the Armenians only got a small amount of territory after WWI and didn't even get access to Mt. Ararat (the Palestinians, Yazidis and Kurds didn't even get their own countries; that senseless war screwed up everything).

An excellent movie. Terry George also directed the masterpieces "Some Mother's Son" (about the Irish Hunger Strikers) and "Hotel Rwanda" (about the Rwandan Genocide). Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale play roles very different from the ones with which they're most associated, with outstanding support from Charlotte Le Bon, Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog),Rade Šerbedžija (Eyes Wide Shut),Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code) and Kevork Malikyan (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).