The “Captives” Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan Armenian film has an official selection at the 67th International Film Festival of Cannes is not unanimous. Adverse criticisms are many. Yesterday in an article by Isabelle Regnier in “Le Monde”, Atom Egoyan is desecrated and simply down to the lowest steps of the Cannes Film Festival! The journalist who hounds Atom Egoyan written that he “was with Ararat (2002), the official director of the Armenian cause”! An unfair statement and in this case, can we also say that the filmmakers on genocide, including those devoted to the Shoah are “official filmmakers” of these causes?

We deliver Below are some excerpts from the article “Le Monde”.

“The time when the name of Atom Egoyan sounded like the promise of a disturbing film and lived is remote. From The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which led to the Oscars, the Canadiens stopped digging this strange vein, which was salt Calendar (1993) and Exotica (1994), preferring the laurels international academic. In the early 2000s, when he was with Ararat (2002), the official director of the Armenian cause, he was starting a parallel career as a director of opera. Since none of his films has really caught the attention of critics and Captives is not party to change the situation. This polar amid screams pedophilia desire of the author to see pick up the facets of his identity as an artist: digging a well murky subject (a story derived from that of Natascha Kampusch, who certainly does not stop to inspire cinema), by injecting CCTV footage and Internet sites, including airing opera zest and seeking, by casting, by an entry in the agreed codes of thriller, to unite the broadest possible audience. But in this forest of signs, nothing vibrates. A construction puzzle lets first guessing the time to understand what is being played on the screen. A girl was abducted by a part of a powerful network, eight years before the beginning of the film pedophile. His father had three minutes left in the back of a car, that her mother has never forgiven him. The investigation is still ongoing (…) From the beginning, however, the strong negative signals flash. Oddly with his little mustache trimmed, his mouth ajar always vaguely, his taste for opera and his voyeuristic tendencies, the pedophile is a cartoon caricature. Such an election is emblematic of a staging absurd, which strives to relegate any part of the action offscreen (auteur requires) while redoubling musical effects to ensure that n has not been shown has been understood (commercial ambition). ”

Atom Egoyan, one of the most brilliant filmmakers, who came five times in Cannes and went back twice with a price (for Adoration and The Sweet Hereafter) is under fire for his latest film “Captive” presented in competition at International Film Festival in Cannes.

Krikor Amirzayan