‘Amerikatsi’ Review: A Prisoner in His Homeland

In the late Forties, the Soviet Union invited Armenians dwelling overseas to resettle in Soviet Armenia. In “Amerikatsi,” the actor-director Michael Goorjian imagines one such journey and finds an uncommon solution to categorical the aching urge to reconnect with one’s roots.

Goorjian performs Charlie, a naïve, bumbling American who returns to Armenia years after being spirited away as a boy through the genocide. Despite befriending a Soviet official’s spouse (Nelli Uvarova), he will get thrown in jail as a suspicious interloper. Charlie languishes behind jail partitions, and is mocked and overwhelmed by guards. As terrible as that sounds, the movie’s tone stays on the sunshine aspect, even hokey, warmed by Charlie’s hopes.

Charlie finds an escape from despair by gazing into an condominium seen from his barred home windows. He realizes that the person he’s watching, a bearish, temperamental painter named Tigran (Hovik Keuchkerian), is a guard within the jail’s watchtower and seems to be Armenian. So Charlie takes to consuming his meager meals at his window, following together with Tigran’s marital woes, dinner toasts, and makes an attempt at portray.

The setup eloquently symbolizes the predicament of many who, like Charlie, left their homelands very younger. His coronary heart beats Armenian even when he speaks English, but a nagging distance wards off whole belonging. But he schemes oblique methods to speak with the guard and finds a kindred spirit.

It’s an intriguing situation, although not all the time performed out skillfully. For higher and worse, we really feel Charlie’s confinement absolutely, as he watches one other’s life go by and yearns for a correct residence of his personal.

Amerikatsi
Not rated. In Armenian, English and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters.