This is the latest Auroras Sunrise review! Aurora’s Sunrise describes how Mardiganian’s story helped bring attention to the atrocities of the Armenian genocide through stories published in newspapers across the United States. Naturally, Hollywood took notice of the stirring story of survival against all obstacles. Aurora then relived her tragedy in the 1919 film Auction of Souls, which recreated the genocide’s history and starred the young woman in a dramatized portrayal of her experience.
The film, which was long assumed to be lost in its entirety until recently, resurfaces in director Inna Sahakyan’s beautiful and deeply touching documentary, which recreates Mardiganian’s horrific story in ways that Hollywood could never dream of.
Aurora’s Sunrise is the first animated documentary film made in Armenia
Aurora’s Sunrise, a collaboration between Armenian and Lithuanian animators and artists, as well as German and Lithuanian co-producers, is Bars Media’s first animated feature and Armenia’s first animated documentary film. Aurora’s Sunrise was named Best Animated Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and won the Silver Apricot at this year’s Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival. It is also Armenia’s application to the 95th Academy Awards for consideration as Best International Feature Film.
Armenian and devoting much of her documentary filmmaking career to telling Armenian stories – films such as The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia, Mel, and The Road. However, Sahakyan had never heard of Aurora until she came across her testimonials in 2014. That is when she was doing research with the Zoryan Institute for another documentary based on their Oral History Archives, which contains over 700 recorded testimonies of genocide survivors dating back to the 1980s.
Aurora’s five-hour testimony, according to Sahakyan, stood out from the other 100 survival stories she had heard, with Aurora’s experience having an “interesting strength to it, displaying Aurora’s spirit and remarkable destiny.”
Aurora’s story was determined to be a distinct feature by Sahakyan and her team, and they began work on Aurora’s Sunrise the same year, finishing the film after more than seven years.
Armenia and its people have remained on the frontlines of war to this day, despite the tragic genocide that occurred during WWI. Armenia has had about nine additional wars since the genocide over a century ago, two of which have occurred in the previous two years.
Five years into the production of Aurora’s Sunrise, in September 2020, a new battle started over the landlocked region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the fall of the USSR. All of the men on Bars Media’s team were on the front lines during the fighting, some under direct fire. The war’s pressure put the entire project in peril, and the studio itself nearly closed down.
Some of the most painful times for Sahakyan were also some of the most satisfying aspects of production, as she was able to incorporate her own artistic vision into Aurora’s story.
Animation is an excellent technique for telling these kinds of stories since it is not only visually appealing but also allows for the capture of Aurora’s dreams, which can be a little fairytale-like due to her recollections. The animation allows for the usage of symbols and colors that add to the plot while remaining quite realistic.
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Auroras Sunrise review
What does the film depict?
The film depicts her father having a little silk production studio at their home where he would manufacture silk cocoons, which he then dyed all sorts of vivid colors early in Aurora’s Sunrise. Sahakyan claims this was Aurora’s “brightest memory,” which made exploiting this bright recollection to practically torment Aurora throughout the film very difficult.
Another bright light in Aurora’s memory was spending time with her family putting on plays at home. In the film, she describes being on stage with her mother and brothers, acting out the narrative of The Three Goats, who band together to defeat an invading wolf.
This is another scene in which Sahakyan used the wolf on stage to represent the Turkish soldiers who were murdering Aurora’s family, and as more people died and more silk turned crimson, Aurora’s family members began to disappear from the stage, eventually leaving Aurora alone, with nothing but broken props and cobwebs of red silk surrounding her.
The play and silk motifs collaborate to show the agony of losing everything you’ve ever had in your life. To depict visually the heaviness of losing every member of her family, to convey those emotions while avoiding direct brutality.
Scenes depicting the horrific reality of Aurora’s narrative – being imprisoned at gunpoint, holding a wailing orphaned kid, staring into a river of bodies – are combined with the immensely beautiful surroundings of the Ottoman Empire. Even with so much hatred, violence, and death, the waterways, deserts, and forests appear magnificent; it’s strange to be so intrigued by the backdrop when what’s happening to the people in the scenario is so horrible.
Aurora’s Sunrise set 100 years after the events of Auction of Souls, is a sympathetic continuation of her story. While the original performance garnered major funds for the rescue effort and war orphans, the fragments of Auction of Souls are at times too painful to witness as Mardiganian reopens old scars. Aurora’s Sunrise is unmistakably her story, but its storybook design emphasizes the loss of childhood innocence. It heightens the tragedy’s impact.
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Auroras Sunrise review about character animation
The figures in “Sunrise’s” animated segments resemble paper dolls. They are portrayed realistically – even rotoscoped at times – yet their movements are more constrained. The characters’ movements are limited to a basic tilt of the head and a few poses here and there.
In this regard, they are more reminiscent of an Alphonse Mucha illustration than to Pixar’s magical plasticity. As a result, the animated cast feels flimsier than their live-action counterparts. They emphasize the human body’s fragility, which is made of paper limbs that are easily shattered by the winds of change.
Despite the limits of the character animation, the Impressionist-style backgrounds are meticulously drawn. Perhaps this is why Sahakyan’s focus remains mostly realistic. The realism of the characters balances out the occasional aesthetic flourish, and the occasional glimpse inside the archive grounds the audience in the veracity of the plot.
This could possibly be owing to Sahakyan’s own production issues; after all, this is her (and Bars Media’s) first debut in animated movies. Furthermore, Bars Media revealed that all of the men on its crew were on the front lines of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The ghosts of Mardiganian’s conflict haunt “Aurora’s Sunrise.” Once again, art appears to imitate life.
Auroras Sunrise review about the film production
Sahakyan, Armenian art directors, and Lithuanian animators and illustrators collaborated with Turkish filmmakers who visited Aurora’s hamlet and sent back photographs for reference.
The project includes a Documentary Research department, a Restoration department, a Fiction Filming department in which real actors were filmed on a greenscreen for animation reference, and a Full Animation department, with labor being split between Armenia, Germany, and Lithuania. Sahakyan acknowledges important influences on the film to Editor & Live Action Director Ruben Ghazaryan, Art Director Tigran Arakelyan, and Lead Illustrator Gediminas Skyrius.
The poignant score composed by Christine Aufderhaar, with additional Armenian music from Andranik Berberyan and Garegin Arakelyan, ties together the live film footage, old video records of an older Aurora, and the highly detailed graphics and animation – all from various decades.
Conclusion
Above is our Auroras Sunrise review. Overall, “Aurora’s Sunrise” is one of the more fascinating productions of the 1915 Armenian Genocide to date. It, like many previous animated documentaries, investigates the missing archive through the use of drawn footage. Unlike many others, it goes beyond simply making a statement about testimony. After all, “Aurora’s Sunrise” is a film about a film that isn’t actually about a film (“Auction of Souls”) (Arshaluys Mardiganian herself).
Autobiography and biography merge into one, as Arshaluys remarks when she watches herself on film. In this sense, “Aurora’s Sunrise” reflects on the hiding and revealing of truth. Mardiganian’s message concerning the Armenian Genocide is thus carried to North America.
