Director Inna Sahakyan's animated documentary, Aurora's Sunrise, follows 17-year-old Aurora (real name Arshaluys) Mardiganian, who miraculously survived the 1915 Armenian genocide. Sahakyan combines animation, photographs, archival material, images, sounds, voice-over narration, and fragments of Auction of Souls (a lost 1919 film also known as Ravished Armenia) to tell not only the protagonist's almost-forgotten story but also to highlight the courage and sacrifice it takes to remember. This hybrid documentary transcends its subject matter to construct a complex narrative about a movie within a movie, in attempt to convey the magnitude of Aurora's loss.
Sahakyan's deft use of mixed media compels the viewer to experience Aurora's distress from a variety of angles. So much suffering cannot be fully encapsulated by a single medium or a conventional, autobiographical storyline: each medium instead focuses the viewer's attention on a specific aspect of the story, to portray the full horror of what Aurora encountered. Sahakyan offers an insight into how Aurora's mind processed what she experienced: memories of trauma do not follow a linear structure, but seem to struggle to be forgotten, reemerging at any moment, especially in the presence of continuous reminders.
The film portrays Aurora as a victim, yet she remains courageous and dedicated to sharing the truth, despite her suffering. The film's themes are conveyed through color symbolism: red evokes Aurora's father's pre-genocide cultivation of cotton (which he dyed red) and her joyful childhood—while the sun and various shades of yellow represent Armenia and feature prominently throughout the animated sections of the documentary.
Aurora endured all the atrocities of the Armenian genocide, including deportation, rape, sexual slavery, and the loss of most of her loved ones at the age of just fourteen. She found freedom and a degree of celebrity after reaching New York and publishing a memoir, Ravished Armenia, in 1918. Yet she soon became a victim again, this time of Hollywood, when profit-driven producers Henry Gates and William Selig optioned the autobiography and cast Aurora as herself in Auction of Souls.
One heartbreaking scene reveals the depth of Aurora's unhappiness in the spotlight. Red cotton, now signifying bloodshed, enshrouds her childhood home. The stress of reliving her experiences on a promotional tour causes her to suffer a breakdown. Charlie Chaplin provides a brief moment of respite as he manages to raise a smile from Aurora. But the film's producers use her breakdown as an excuse to replace her with English-speaking “lookalikes” for the remainder of the tour. Unable or unwilling to deal with the consequences of Aurora's trauma, Selig and his cohorts distance themselves and send her to a convent to recuperate.
Sahakyan acknowledges that Auction of Souls became a commercial success, drew worldwide attention to the Armenian tragedy, and raised money for Armenian orphanages, but she stresses that it presented American audiences with a sanitized view of the genocide. If the original feature showed the crucifixion of raped Armenian women, Aurora's testimony relates that the assaulted women were impaled on pointed wooden crosses in a horrifying echo of rape. An older Aurora reflects that the Turks targeted women to eliminate the Armenian people's entire genetic and cultural heritage.
Another aesthetic—and political—shortcoming of Auction of Souls was its depiction of historical events in rapid succession, which left viewers unable to grasp their continuing impact on survivors. In contrast, the animated sections of Aurora's Sunrise are personal and emotive, focusing on the subtle, gentle movements of characters’ heads and hands. Sahakyan achieved this effect by first filming actors and then commissioning Armenian and Lithuanian animators to trace over the footage.
The film's soundtrack does not always match the tragic images, as when thrilling music from Auction of Souls transitions to an animated sequence suffused with raw emotion. The shifts from animation to film, and the abundance of color, occasionally distract from the narrative. But nothing diminishes the viewer's sympathy for Aurora and her people. Aurora Mardiganian was just one of thousands. But in Sahakyan's hands, we will not forget.
