One of the great things about historical movies, even mediocre ones, is the ability to call attention to otherwise ignored atrocity. Between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire exterminated 1.5 million Armenians. It took The Promise to bring this fact to my attention, I am ashamed to say. I don’t hold modern Turks any more accountable for this awful than modern Germans for the extermination of Jews twenty years later, but I think these things are important to know … just as our own country is hardly innocent along these lines. Slavery may not be genocide, but it sure isn’t far from it.
Ok, let’s switch gears. I have a film to discuss. The Promise is your classic love rhombus set against _____________. The blank in this case is the outbreak of World War I around Constantinople. I keep hoping I’ll see on film the exact moment when Constantinople becomes Istanbul, but being that this epic ends during the Great War, all we do here is narrow the timeline.
Armenian apothecarist Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) wants to be a doctor. Oscar Isaac has one of those “I can be most any ethnicity in the Western World” faces, don’t he? (FWIW, he’s Guatemalan; who had money on that?) Anyway, he can’t pay to live his dream, so he strikes a deal: he agrees to marry the girl-who-obviously-won’t-be-half-as-striking-as-the-one-he’s-going-to-fall-for in exchange for doctor school money, at which point he trots off to the big city, doubloons in hand, and The Promise to marry Plain-AghavniJane when he returns.
Predictably, Mikael falls, pretty much, for the first female he meets in Constantinople, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), the woman employed as a frou-frou dance tutor for his nieces. Gee, how’s that job pay? Ana is, of course, not romantically free, having hitched up her toe shoes to Batman, er, that’s American journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale). Yeah, I think we can all see this coming. These films come in two varieties – one in which the players have to deal with the triangle and one in which so much life happens, nobody has the ability to worry about love or infidelity. This is the latter variety.
And it’s a lot of latter as not only does World War I happen, but the Ottoman Empire starts executing Armenians by the Boghosian to boot.
The premise of The Promise didn’t stick to much –there were hints of romance, hints of thrill, hints of atrocity, but the film never really adhered to any of them. When in doubt, the camera followed Mikael around as he was the only character living in all three worlds.
I had a great deal of trouble taking anything seriously that came from the mouth of Christian Bale and his Brillo-pad Chia beard. However, in retrospect, at least his look was consistent. The progression of Oscar Isaac, IIRC, went: clean, half, beard, clean, beard, half, beard. I might have to check that again. Truth is, towards the end, I think he showed up with different length beard fur every time the camera switched back to him; it was like dealing with Wooly Willy, that magnetic
beard toy.
This is pretty much the period of history in which every city block in Europe had a sign reading, “IN CASE OF WAR, BREAK GLASS.” It is fascinating how early 20th C. Eurasian folks were itchin’ for a good war … it was kinda like a continent entirely full of the W. administration. My personal guess is that the script was set for a 105 minute run-time and then suddenly the producers remembered that this was an epic with a World War and ethnic cleansing, so a more important run-time was considered. Hence, more war and atrocities and stuff were added just in case the conclusion might fit. At the end of the day, The Promise wasn’t a terrific film, but I do now know where Armenia is and why it, perhaps, doesn’t make as much news as it should.
FWIW, 1923 is when the Ottoman Empire fell thus prompting the name change from Constantinople to Istanbul. But that’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
♪Mikael in Constantinople
Was a baby doc in Constantinople
He had to get gone from Constantinople
‘Cause pre-Turkish right wanted blood tonight
All Christians in Constantinople
Would be murdered in Constantinople
So Armenians in Constantinople
Had to escape, that’s no bull
Even Christian Bale had no immunity
Why the anger? I can’t say
Some must equate “hate” and “pray”♫
Rated PG-13, 133 Minutes
D: Terry George
W: Terry George, Robin Swicord
Genre: Epic epicness epicity
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Armenians
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Turks
♪ Parody inspired by “Istanbul”
