Claudio C
Une histoire de fou / Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad (2015)
The Armenian Turkish Hatred
(12,090 – 27 Nov 2025 – by Claudio Carvalho)
On 15 March 1921, the Armenian Soghomon Tehlirian (Robinson Stévenin) assassinated Talaat Pasha (Francis Boulmé) to revenge the genocide of Armenian people (true history).
In the end of the 70’a, in Marseille, Hovannès Alexandrian (Simon Abkarian), runs a grocery store and lives with his wife Anouch (Ariane Ascaride), his son Aram (Syrus Shahidi), his young daughter Nounée (Rania Mellouli) and his mother-in-law Arsinée Sarkissian (Sirvart Fazlian). Out of the blue, the rebel Aram and his friend Vahé (Amir El Kacem) join an Armenian terrorist group and he travels to Paris to make a terrorist attack against the Turkish ambassador. However, when Aram blows up the bomb, the medical student Gilles Teissier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) is hit and both legs destroyed. His life is totally affected, and Aram flees to Beirut to participate of the armed struggle of the Armenian terrorists, Anouch decides to travel to Paris and meet Gilles. She gives her address in Marselle to the angry Gilles. On the day of Nounée’s birthday, he appears at Hovannès’ house expecting to talk to Aram.
"Une histoire de fou", a.k.a. "Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad" (2015), is an interesting French film that explains the Armenian Turkish hatred. It begins showing true history and then with a gripping fictional story of a shattered Armenian family because their elder son becomes a terrorist. Robert Guédiguiana succeeds in showing facts that many viewers did not know. Further, he does not take position and leaves the viewers have their own opinion. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Uma História de Loucura" ("A Story of Madness")
My Blog: https://maniacosporfilme.wordpress.com/
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
11/27/25
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Audience Member
Baseada na vida e obra do jornalista José Antonio Gurriarán, que sofreu um ataque a bomba por parte dos armênios, e o mais intrigante, posteriormente ele tornara-se militante em prol do povo armênio, que sofreu um genocídio nos anos 20 pelos turcos, em 2021, 31 países já reconhecer como genocídio, inclusive Brasil, exceto Turquia, um filme historicamente importante, embora, entrecortado com muitas partes ficcionais, como a personificação de Aram e sua família...
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
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This impressionistic masterpiece by important Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens is as abstract as the subjectivity of life appreciation through both personal anecdotes in real life and the reflection of our soul through artistic manifestiations. I mean the following.
The whole idea revolves around Ivens' personal journey to film the impossible: the wind. Wind is a concept we have given to the physical force inflicted by gases in the environment and the atmosphere, including oxygen. Wind can be perceived through all senses, except the sight, since it remains invisible to the human eye. It's like the concept of "The Invisible Man": the only way we can be certain about his existence is the physical reaction of objects being manipulated by him, or worn by him. Wind is the same.
However, if we compare this subjective term called "wind", which is nothing but a manifestation of preceding chemical processes in Nature, with the subjectivity of the creative filmmaking process, we'll find both similarities and differences. The main similarities are that both concepts are in the mind, but cannot be seen before their creation. We are certain about the wind because we perceive it without seeing it; filmmakers are certain about their cinematic ideas without the film existing, because they perceive it with their minds, and a previous idea is required before the creation of a cinematic project. Ergo, both are matter of personal perceptions.
With this metaphysical duality I dare to proclaim a justification of the documentary's experimental tone. It is abstract. It is poetic. It is absorbing. It is in love with its invisible lover. Just like the wind. Just like the ideas in the mind. Ivens opens with a statement condemning his own journey: "it is foolish". Before the final sequence, he states that "filming what is impossible is what is the best in life". This is what made me love his cinematic concept of a "climax" in his documentary: the final sequence gives you the feeling of an epic, happy ending, where the search was finally over. Still, if we hold both the opening and the ending statements as true, then it is blatantly obvious that this is a journey eternally doomed to fail. Maybe he kept laughing at the irony of it all. And to add to this irony, there is another source of irony: his futile search of something abstract created a documentary masterpiece.
What does it mean to doom the wind? To what extent are you filming the "natural" state of the wind's existence? Is this "natural" state of existence, in case it exists, manipulated to some degree? The first object we see is a plane. It uses the wind, manipulating it for its own convenience. The next object we see is a mill: again, an object that "creates" wind. Both wind is not created, because matter cannot be created, but only manipulated? How can you convince an abstract and subjective term to obbey your unclarified audiovisual ambitions?
The importance of <i>Une Histoire de Vent</i> is that it can represent whatever you want it to represent. An IMDB plot description written by says that "Ivens melds culture, landscape and mindscape with breath taking effect". That's the best possible description about this hypnotic collage based on human perception and subjectivity, wind and Nature, culture and folklore, breathing and living, breathing and dying. There seems to be a barrier between our comprehension of Nature and the terms we invent to explain what we don't understand nor see, like "wind", just like there seems to be a barrier between Ivens' origins and the culture he filmed in documentaries since war times.
So why is it a documentary if it has fictionalized settings? Because all of those settings were in the mind of Ivens, and he clearly put them there as a reflection of how his fantasized mentality could have an impact in his real life. I think that is perfectly valid in a documentary. His fantasies and cinematic influences that date to the times of Méliès are as real as him, whereas a movie dramatizes and fictionalizes everything because of either not capturing reality at the moment, or not filming fictionalized representations of an undeniable reality.
97/100
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
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It could be understood as the whim of a filmmaker making a film for him after devoting his life to the problems of others.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
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An elderly filmmaker, Joris Ivens, the director himself, goes to China to "film the wind". This is a film which really defies classification. It's technically a documentary but it's not really exactly. There's a story arc but it's not exactly a narrative either. It's not a full-on mockumentary. I honestly didn't know what to make of it at first since it goes into all sorts of strange directions, almost dream-like at times, meta at times, both dream-like and meta at the same time. But I think it all came together and won me over in the end. A beautiful piece of work and as I found out, the last film of the director. This has got to be the perfect swan song.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
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Audience Member
Looks like a rare find, good ol' underground cinephiles gettin' me the hookup. Since there is no description here, I'll give you one: documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens tries to film the wind. Yep. It also delves some into Chinese folklore/mythology and whathaveyou, so it turns into a poetic sort of narrative. I liked it.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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