 Carla Garapedian first encountered System of a Down in 2004 at the Greek
Theatre, when she was working a table set up by the Armenian Film Foundation. "I saw Serj Tankian walk by," she said. "He has this way of walking - he sort of
floats along…. He has this amazing profile and this shock of hair. He waved a little like the queen, and I thought, 'Who is this person?' "
She read up on him, listened to the music and started to worry. "I said, 'Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I don't understand this music.' I would turn it down
when they were screaming, then I would hear these crazy lyrics and Serj's voice, which has a certain Armenian quality to it, like a church liturgy, and I was
very taken in.".
They met to discuss the film in London in April 2005. "He said,
"We will let
you film us on tour if you can get the money together for the film, " said
Garapedian.
"They had never allowed anyone to film their performances. They want their songs
to speak for themselves. They don't really want to be seen only as a political
band."
Tankian's bandmates had to be persuaded, particularly guitarist Daron Malakian.
"I tried to get the band involved," Tankian said. "Everyone has their own
concern about how things are rendered, but everyone supported it." As for the
disruptions of a film crew, he added, "It was pretty basic. We were doing what
we had to do whether there was a camera rolling or not."
Read the Full article y Robin Abcarian, Times Staff Writer
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The poster says you will see System of a Down in this movie, and so you will;
it kicks off with a hard-rocking performance from the band’s April 2005 concert
at the Gibson Amphitheatre. If you couldn’t be there in person, it’s great to
see it on the big screen, but there’s a lot more going on here than a mere
big-screen rockumentary. By the time Screamers is done, you’ll have seen footage
of corpses from every major recent global genocide, and perhaps be convinced, if
you weren’t already, that there is some value in having celebrities take up
political causes. System of a Down are certainly no Dixie Chicks—it’s hard to
imagine anyone trying to tell lead singer Serj Tankian to shut up and sing.
In
the U.S., the band are the most visible spokespeople for the recognition of the
Armenian genocide of 1915, which many of their grandparents lived through. (That
so many of those grandparents are still alive today may be the best
advertisement ever for the benefits of pomegranate juice—a staple of the
Armenian diet.) So many documentaries about genocides play art-house theaters
that it can be easy to get jaded, but combining one with tour footage from the
most innovative metal band in the world is genius, banging the viewer’s head
before he realizes it’s being filled with awareness too. (Luke Y. Thompson) (AMC
at the Block, Orange) See related story here.
By the OCweekly
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What will probably stay with any viewer are the film's tales of epic cruelty,
told on a personal scale (one eyewitness is Tankian's grandfather). Garapedian
shows disturbing visual evidence of genocides from 1915 to the current
slaughters in Darfur. The piece is intelligently made, although the director
often doesn't establish place or time, leaving the viewer unmoored.
The film postulates that acknowledging genocides could have a preventive effect,
but does not prove that failure to recognize the horrors of 1915-18 paved the
way for actions such as Hitler's two decades later. After all, while only fringe
groups still question whether the Holocaust occurred, there have been many
genocides since.
By Michael Ordoña, Calendarlive.com
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For all their expressed humanitarian concern and moral outrage over genocides
past and present, the world's leaders have historically allowed strategic
military and/or political alliances to trump ethical considerations—until public
outcry forces them to take action. In 1915, there were scores of newspaper
accounts about the "murder of a nation," to quote then-U.S. ambassador to
Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, but neither the U.S. nor Great Britain intervened.
Their refusal to act only emboldened Hitler, who later said, "Who remembers the
Armenians?" in 1939 before launching "The Final Solution" that killed 6 million
European Jews. Through her skillful use of disturbing archival footage and
stills, interviews with Powers, Morgenthau's grandson, and genocide survivors
from Armenia and Rwanda, Garapedian paints a chilling portrait of governments
putting politics before principles, a shameful foreign policy tradition that
dates back to 1915 and continues to this day.
Although the concert footage of System of a Down performing such hits as "Holy
Mountains" and "P.L.U.C.K." in London and Berlin may be the primary lure for
many moviegoers, these well-shot scenes are nevertheless the least compelling
element in Screamers.
Read Full review by Tim Knight, Reel.com
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The end credits of Garapedian's documentary "Screamers" — which examines the
world's history of genocides in the 20th and 21st centuries — contains a huge
body count of casualties: 1.5 million Armenians dead, 2 million Cambodians,
400,000 and counting in Darfur. And you get the sense that, had she the
resources and screen time, the director might have thrown every last corpse up
on screen. The effect, alas, quickly becomes numbing.
Cutting between the carnage and the commentators who acknowledge that, yes, the
United States has a rather shoddy history of genocide intervention, Garapedian
takes us on the road with System of a Down. The Grammy-winning rock band whose
members — like Garapedian — have Armenian lineage, deliver music with a message.
Garapedian has lined up an assortment of erudite and well-spoken contributors
(most notably Harvard University genocide expert Samantha Power) to drive home
our nation's culpability in the global carnage. By trying to bring the
Holocaust, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur onto the same 91-minute
canvas, the director has perhaps cast her net too wide, leaving her outrage over
Armenia less sharply drawn.
Read Full review
by Evan Henerson, Dailynews.com
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Heavy metal isn’t just mindless noise. Sometimes, maybe – but, in the hands
of the band System of a Down, it is a storm of sound and ideas, a collision of
wild intelligence and genuine rage. Nothing fuels that rage more than the
Armenian Genocide, a World War I-era atrocity committed by Turkey that entailed
the slaughter of one-and-a-half million Armenians. It is a personal matter for
the L.A.-based metal quartet, all of whom are descended from genocide survivors.
Screamers is a primer for hard-rock fans on the first genocide of the last
century, arguing how denial that it took place has contributed to other crimes
against humanity in Darfur, Iraq, Bosnia, and elsewhere.
Director Carla
Garapedian presents the crime through the eyes of the band, which has used its
notoriety and success (Grammys, platinum albums, etc.) to educate the world
about an atrocity that remains unrecognized by the U.S. government. There are
stirring firsthand accounts, concert footage, and grainy historical images of
severed heads and hangings. In Washington, D.C., charismatic singer Serj Tankian
corners House Speaker Dennis Hastert beneath the Capitol dome, but the
Republican comes off as vaguely bumbling and uninterested. Hastert hardly seems
worth the trouble. But the mission of one hard-rock group to correct the record
on a piece of modern history is a frequently moving, high-volume journey.
By Steve Appleford - LACityBeat.com
Read a recent intreview with Carla and John about this movie
HERE
Submit your own review if you have seen the film in the
Review Forum.
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