The Promise

The Promise is writer/​director Ter­ry George’s first film set on for­eign soil since 2004’s Hotel Rwan­da. It focus­es on the highs and lows of Armen­ian apothe­cary Mikael (Oscar Isaac) at the tail end of the Ottoman Empire.

Along his jour­ney to becom­ing a doc­tor he moves to his wealthy uncle’s house in Con­stan­tino­ple, where he meets Ana (Char­lotte Le Bön). Soon a bur­geon­ing romance devel­ops between Mikael and his cousins’ tutor and dance teacher, also of Armen­ian her­itage. How­ev­er, there are a few obsta­cles stand­ing in the way of their love, name­ly Ana’s Amer­i­can reporter boyfriend Chris (Chris­t­ian Bale), and the fact that Mikael became betrothed before he moved to Turkey in order to fol­low his dreams of becom­ing a doctor.

Mikael and Ana’s affair is back­dropped by the break out of World War One. After avoid­ing being draft­ed into the Ottoman Army with help from his afflu­ent fel­low stu­dent and friend Emre (Mar­wan Ken­zari), Mikael is even­tu­al­ly detained and sent to a prison labour camp. Once free, he heads back to his home­town to be reunit­ed with his fam­i­ly and (almost com­plete­ly for­got­ten about) fiancé.

Hav­ing been pre­sumed dead for so long, Mikael’s return prompts his loved ones to insist on safe­guard­ing him for the rest of his life. This means him relo­cat­ing to a remote house in the moun­tains, where we see him start­ing a new life with his now preg­nant wife.

George’s use of colour match­es the feel­ings of both pro­tag­o­nists, as well as the mood of the entire coun­try; the vibrant and eye-catch­ing per­spec­tive on Turkey we are shown at the begin­ning of the film is con­trast­ed by the char­ac­ters’ descent into a much dark­er and seem­ing­ly inescapable future.

For­bid­den love is the pre­dom­i­nant theme here, but George is just as inter­est­ed in explor­ing this ter­ri­ble peri­od in Euro­pean his­to­ry, which is still denied by the Turk­ish Gov­ern­ment today. Although this is very much a clas­sic way of pre­sent­ing his­tor­i­cal events, it’s ques­tion­able as to whether the cen­tral love sto­ry steals our atten­tion away from the geno­cide of the Armen­ian people.

Isaac is par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling here. His ini­tial stiff­ness is con­trast­ed lat­er on by his character’s height­ened emo­tion­al state, as Mikael is left to peace­ful­ly yet mourn­ful­ly reflect on the dev­as­tat­ing events of his life.