Cinema
The House on the Volcano
Dom na vulkane
Amo Bek-Nazaryan · 1929
Synopsis
Petros, a master driller, tells his adopted son about the strike of the oil workers of Baku, before the revolution. Armenians and Azerbaijani Tatars toil there twelve hours a day for a large company, housed by the management on the oilfields, above pockets of flammable gas that give the film its title. Armenian workers are suspected of sabotage; yet the workers of the two peoples overcome their differences to oppose their employers, and the strike is brutally suppressed.
Context
The film is a coproduction of the Armenkino studios of Yerevan and Azgoskino of Baku, ten years after the massacres of Armenians in Baku; it is the last silent film by its director in Armenia and his first collaboration with Baku. He wrote the screenplay with P. Folyan and gave the role of Petros to Hrachia Nersisyan, alongside Tigran Ayvazyan and Tatyana Makhmuryan, who made her debut in it. A historical melodrama and disaster film, it was restored in 4K in Yerevan for the Armenian national cinema centre, then shown in its North American premiere at the Museum of Modern Art with music by Juliet Merchant. Armeniapedia sees in it propaganda that sets Soviet brotherhood against national unity, while admiring its images.
Who it is for
Silent, about an hour long; a militant melodrama with many characters, available in a restored copy.
Prizes and reception
Long rare, it now circulates in an Armenian digital restoration, and is praised for its close-ups and its dense plot.
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