Calendar. - movie reviews

Christian Century, March 3, 1993 by James M. Wall

Canadian director Atom Egoyan is a quiet man who avoided a press conference after the initial screening of his sixth feature film, Calendar. A few of us caught up with him just outside the theater where he willingly chatted about his picture, which deals with a photographer, played by Egoyan, who like the director is from an Armenian family but doesn't speak the language. His wife plays the role of Egoyan's movie wife, but she does speak the language--which sets up the film's drama of failed communication and experiences not shared.

The couple travels to Armenia to take pictures of churches for a calendar. (The film is co-produced by the Armenian government, a German television company and Egoyan's Canadian company.) The film's premise is simple: a local guide drives the photographer and his wife to remote church sites and describes the significance of the architecture and history of the buildings. (In one delightful exchange he refers to a point of "energy" which determined the location of the structure.) The wife translates for her husband, but it soon becomes obvious that she is also developing a rapport with the guide; they share a love for the country and its churches, and they have a common language which the husband lacks. But more than the Armenian language is missing from this marriage. The husband is someone who observes but cannot participate. From the wife's first attempt to translate the deep feelings the guide has for country and church, it is clear that it is only a matter of time before their rapport will translate into love.

Egoyan tells his story of a disintegrating marriage on several levels, cutting from a subjective 8 mm segment, which he shoots as the wife and guide talk, back to the film's regular camera, which captures the increasing tension between husband and wife. The film also alternates between the period in Armenia before the marriage fails and a period in Canada a year later as Egoyan's character "conducts" a series of dates with women he seeks out because they speak different languages and because they will reject him after they finish a bottle of wine together. Tension is created by long sections in which only Armenian is spoken, which neither the photographer not the film's audience can understand. And always there is the countryside of Armenia, and the centuries-old churches, which stand as mute witnesses to the folly of a man who has removed himself from life by recording rather than experiencing what he sees.

When I asked Egoyan if the film was autobiographical, he smiled and said he and his wife are still married. But he acknowledged that as a director he fears falling into the trap of the photographer, an observer who records but understands very little of the inner meaning of what he sees. Unlike the Jost film, Egoyan's picture is humorous--though the laughter is tinged with sadness, as when the wife tries to translate her husband's increasingly aloof mood to the guide, and the guide can't understand a word the man says until he mentions "more money." The musical score also enlivens the picture's good humor, alternating between Armenian folk music and Canadian pop songs. (One college-age German viewer told me later that Egoyan's script contains an amusing reference to a recent popular song about a young woman who can't be Egyptian because she doesn't "walk like an Egyptian.")