Romance amid a slaughter

Why did it take Hollywood so long to make a major motion picture about the Turkish government’s systematic extermination of more than 1 million Armenians a century ago? Perhaps because the victims were largely Christians. A better question: Will The Promise raise awareness of the persecutions Christians continue to face in that part of the world, particularly in Syria? The film doesn’t connect the dots from past to present, and viewers might invest more in the film’s romantic storyline than its history lesson, so we’ll have to see.

The Promise opens on the eve of World War I in a small Armenian town in southern Turkey. Maral (Angela Sarafyan) is betrothed to Mikael (Oscar Isaac), who promises to marry her after he completes medical school in Constantinople. But there he falls in love with Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), a beautiful and talented Armenian woman. Ana is torn between Mikael and Chris (Christian Bale), a brash American reporter with whom she’s had a long but rocky relationship.

Tensions simmer between Ana’s suitors and explode among Turkey’s ethnic groups. The Promise suggests the Ottoman Empire’s pogrom against the Christian Armenians was racially driven, but ignores the Muslim majority’s religious motives. The film portrays Turkish atrocities the Nazis would scale up two decades later: Turkey’s military destroys homes and businesses, marching Armenians out of their villages to die in the desert. Thirsty captives pack trains; labor camp guards gun down weakened prisoners; and the bodies of butchered men, women, and children pile up in forests. The genocide decimates a people and brings one life-altering twist after another to Maral, Mikael, Ana, and Chris.

What would Schindler’s List have been with romance stirring the plot? I shudder to think. The love quadrangle in The Promise often fades into the background but will still strike some viewers as a trivialization of weighty matters. (The film earns its PG-13 rating for depictions of war atrocities and some sexual material.)

Nevertheless, strong acting, intense drama, beautiful cinematography, and a window finally flung open on a hidden holocaust make The Promise worth seeing.