Ararat, first shown in Moscow at the movie festival in June, received a warm welcome and much praise from its largely Armenian audience. But this movie has faced controversy all over the world, and was virtually banned for its content in Turkey. The movie revolves around a delicate piece of tragic history -the 1915-17 Armenian genocide by the Turkish army, the casualties of which are counted at around 1.5 million by Armenians, and which Turkey denies.

Film director Atom Egoyan is one of Canada's most celebrated directors and the only well-known cinematographer of Armenian descent. He created a film that is highly personal and then tried to treat it objectively - turning down, for instance, an invitation to enter Ararat at Cannes, where it stood a solid chance of taking home awards. Egoyan has magnificently weaved together several different perspectives in a very, very complex movie structure.

First of all, there's 18-year-old Raffi (David Alpay) who retells the history of the Armenian people to an airport customs agent (Christopher Plummer) while being detained. His drug-dealing girlfriend, meanwhile, is dealing with the death of her father, in a metaphor for the world's struggle to acknowledge the genocide. There's the use of a movie within the movie (the director's played by well-known Charles Aznavour), which distances Egoyan from a straight portrayal of history.

There's an attempt to study art's roots in history and tradition, with an examination of the history of Archile Gorky. And finally, there's the scrutiny of emotional ties held by Canadians of Turkish and Armenian heritage. It's a mighty undertaking, but Egoyan is able to connect all this into one picture coherently. That there are so many different storylines does leave the audience lost as to each one's significance, and buffers the emotional impact of Egoyan's epic. But, considering the theme, maybe that's a good thing.