IMDb user comments for
Calendar (1993)

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Memory, displacement, distance, 24 November 2001

Author: Stu-24 from Canada

Atom Egoyan's work is almost always about a distance from the immmediate events occurring. This film is no exception to this rule, but is heartbreakingly more accute in its treatment of the theme. Unlike the more popular films, there is no sympathy for the supposed main character, played by Atom himself. He is a dispicable, soul-less chap, without hope or redemption, lost in a fate of repetition that is of his own creation. Moreso than Egoyan's other films, this repetition is a fantasy, moreso than compulsion. Here guilt is as much at play as destiny.

This film hurts me.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Egoyan's experiment in story structure is fascinating and poignant., 2 June 1999
Author: Brian Darr (kaliama@hotmail.com) from San Francisco

This is a wonderful little film that I recently saw on a friend's recommendation, knowing virtually nothing about it except that I'd immensely enjoyed Atom Egoyan's "Exotica" and "the Sweet Hereafter". "Calendar" is not nearly as tragic as those two films; it concerns itself with the sadness of the disintegration of a relationship, but there is a subtle comedy to the film as well. The film is an experiment with a very specific, rigid, yet somehow apt structure: the film has twelve segments, one for each page of a beautiful calendar hanging by its photographer's phone. Laced into this structure is the story of the photographer and his wife's trip to Armenia, and the conflict that arises out of their different reactions to being in the land of their ancestry. It's all very well-told, and even though there is an element of inevitability, reinforced by the structure, the film never really strays into the realm of predictability. Finally, there are moments when the film seems to toy with breaking the sanctity of the fourth wall. This goes beyond the fact that the photographer and his wife are actually played by Mr. Egoyan and his wife. It's impossible to describe briefly and without spoiling the humor, though. If you're intrigued, check it out! You'll be glad.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
an interesting experiment, 16 August 2002

Author: claudemercure from Toronto, Canada

Atom Egoyan's been very consistent in his career about two things. He likes messing with time frames, and his movies can come across as distant bordering on pretentious. Over the years he's been perfecting the former, and making improvements on the latter, as evidenced in Exotica, and, especially, in the beautiful, devastating The Sweet Hereafter.

Calendar came before those films, and it is even more experimental than they are. It would feel pretentious if it wasn't for the fact that Egoyan (more or less playing himself) portrays himself in a very unflattering light. But the whole enterprise does have that familiar Egoyan chill. He plays a photographer who is taking pictures of old Armenian churches for a calendar.

In what is perhaps an expression of self-doubt regarding his aesthetic instincts, his character seeks only to capture the superficial beauty of the churches, paying little attention to the history behind them. He is on this trip with his wife (played by Egoyan's wife), and both of them are of Armenian origin. In Calendar, Egoyan could be trying to comment on any number of things, about his relationship to his wife, to his roots, and to his art. At times it seems like you can almost discern a message coming through, and the film does become somewhat intriguing, but in the end the director is simply too subtle for his own good. And thus he keeps his audience at arm's length.

The shots of churches, though, are beautiful enough to make one want to visit Armenia.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Really loved it, 16 October 2006

Author: Undead_Master

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Coming into this film, I had only seen 3 of Egoyans films but i was very intrigued and i wanted to see some of his earlier work. I ended up really loving this one and it leaves me very excited to see the rest of his films.

The first thing to mention about this film is how "bare bones" the production is. Calendar is incredibly minimalist. There are about 4 or 5 camera angles for the scenes in the house... Then there are the static shots of the churches and the video footage without sound, usually with voice overs. With this simple construction and only a few actors he makes a fantastic film that never feels confined or uncinematic...

Even more interesting is the fact that the story is really not all that special. I mean if you put it in the right order and told it in a conventional way, it wouldn't amount to much of a film. By taking it apart and telling it out of order, he takes a simple story about marital difficulty and turns it into a mystery film. You quickly find yourself deconstructing everything and piecing it all together like a puzzle. Every line of dialog and even the most insignificant details have some purpose.

I was prepared for this kind of structure since I had seen a few of his films already but I can see how a newcomer to his work might take a little time to adjust to it.

This is a rare case where the treatment is much more important to the films success than the content. The fact that it's such a minor story and that it's still so successful is a testament to Egoyan's incredible talent. It's also a perfect case study in how form can sometimes be more important than function or even supersede function completely.

The movie is much greater than the sum of it's parts. Highly recommended.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Not only beautiful, very witty, 23 July 2006

Author: m_ats from Belgique

Questions of diasporic national identity are brilliantly addressed in the concept of a modern society, through various media, paralleled to more personal and private issues such as jealousy, stubbornness and personal pride. Only a person with very little life experience could not comprehend anything to what is going on in this movie. Atom Egoyan succeeded in making a very universal film that is touching at more than only one level. With this film, he proves that he is more than a good film director, but truly an artist who is able to transpose a world view through simple a medium, with low budget. This is personally my favorite Egoyan film, though it's by no means the longest or most commercially successful.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Whither Canada?, 11 October 2007

Author: Justafilmwatcher from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After watching Egoyan's film several times, and being of a resident of Toronto, a city which trumpets its multi-cultural populace, I picked up on some references in Calendar which maybe others would not have.

At one point, the Driver (Adamian), says his two Armenian-descent Canadian passengers (Egoyan and Khanjian) could not properly raise children anywhere but in Armenia. It's an instant dismissal of the fact that the passengers come from a different country; in the Driver's mind, since their ancestry is Armenian, they are Armenian.

Later, the Photographer gives uncomfortable answers to his Translator wife as to why he's not moved by his subject matter--the old churches of Armenia. He states that he finds the churches interesting to the eye, but also that he feels little reverence for them culturally or historically. She seemingly cannot fathom why he would feels so; but also doesn't she seem to understand that her husband is Canadian, not Armenian.

The most telling references come the end of the film where the Photographer and his final Guest talk about living in a new country. He tells of his difficulties when he, as a child, moved to Canada from Armenia and had difficulty in learning English. The Guest sympathizes with Egoyan, implying that she went through a similar experience, saying she "considers herself Egyptian"--yet BORN and RAISED in Canada! (It's also interesting to note that Khanjian, the Translator, speaks Engish with an accent. The Photographer speaks urbane, Toronto English.)

Calendar revolves around the issue that the couple's trip to Armenia provokes a strong response in Khanjian's character, so much so that she discards her country and her husband.

Consider the final scene with the Driver: he jokingly acts like a KGB official, and takes the couple's passports.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
A Haunting Tale of Comparisions, 20 June 2007

Author: ocarol7 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It is clear to me that I appreciated this film much more than many who have written so I am moved for the first time to add my voice to this wonderful site-

I found the juxtaposition of the photography trip in Armenia with the sequential interviewing back in Canada to be a structural choice that kept my interest, as was the ongoing opportunity to compare the nature of the detached, linear and increasingly controlling photographer (played by Egoyan himself) with the developing flow and connected communication going on between the translator who is blossoming (Arsinee Khanjian, Egoyan's real and cinematic wife) and the self assured yet relaxed driver (Ashot Adamyan). His later decision to foster a child remotely rather than enter into the messiness of actually raising one of his own with his wife also reflects aptly the polarity between his wife and himself.

Viewing the Armenian sites as they are being photographed and then as photographs on the finished calendar as time passes was likewise a satisfying editing choice as far as I'm concerned.

The slow pace of life in Armenia, with its evocative landscapes and holy sites as well as contact with the group of local men who appear to be sharing in music making just for the primal joy of it reveals some of what the translator is being touched by, all that is apparently escaping her husband even as he sees the effect it is obviously having on her.

I found myself increasingly pulled into the film as it went on, which may say something about my own penchant for beautiful and remote places as opposed to the busyness and business of more ordinary Western life.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Perhaps not entirely successful, but definitely good and well worth seeing, 4 September 2006

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

A small project wedged between his first two more mainstream products, The Adjuster and Exotica, Calendar stars the director and his wife, Arsinée Khanjian as a photographer and his wife. They are traveling to different Armenian churches in order to photograph them for a calendar. Both of them are Armenian by heritage, but he is disconnected from it, while she speaks the language (and acts as translator). During the trip, their Armenian guide begins to grow closer to the wife. The film actually takes place much later, as Egoyan, now no longer with his wife, is trying to duplicate her by holding "auditions" with women, presumably re-enacting the first meeting with his ex. It's all rather confusing. I never quite figured it all out. I'm not sure the film works. I liked all the stuff about the Armenian churches (some beautiful images here, and the film's style in these scenes is great), but the whole narrative about the dates never seemed to come to fruition. However, it is an extremely interesting film, and it's rather haunting at the end. Calendar itself may feel somewhat incomplete, but Egoyan is definitely a fully-fledged artist here. The only earlier film of his I've seen, Speaking Parts, did not communicate his talent. This is definitely worth seeing, especially as it only runs at 75 minutes.

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3 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Tedious, 21 November 2000

Author: omarazam

I have to speak out at how mediocre I felt this film to be. It has some creative gestures, such as the use of the calendar sequence and the once a month dinner dates, but these wore thin; I found the film not to be dynamic and highly predictable, if not in its outcome then at least in its process. The dialogue lacks, consisting mostly of monologues. It can be perceived as poignant and inventive, but not nearly enough to redeem it.

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3 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
an experiment in viewer tolerance, 9 February 2001

Author: God! Awful from Ottawa, Canada

I don't usually give movies a rating of 1. Normally I have the good sense not to sit through movies that I'm going to hate. However, in this case the filmmaker was Atom Egoyan so I decided to bear it out.

Calendar is one of those films which hangs in time. The events on the screen are initially incomprehensible to us, but as the plot drags on, the same basic scenes are repeated again and again, each time casting new light on the relationship between the protagonist and his wife.

Egoyan seems to have a love affair with European languages. A large portion of the film is spent listening to women of various nationalities jabbering on the phone (without being able to understand what they are saying).

Then there are the scenes where Egoyan films his wife's trip to Armenia. The whole episode is deliberately constructed to play like a home movie. The subtle nuances in these scenes are overshadowed by the fact that the scenes themselves are boring.

A large part of the home video is spent having Egoyan's wife translate one character's narratives from Armenian to English. The last film I saw with that plot device was Godard's "Contempt" and I hated it then as well.

Egoyan even ridicules this plot device in a subsequent scene when his photographer character spends several minutes (onscreen) videotaping a man talking without having any conception of what he is talking about.

There is a section in the middle of the film where the plot seems to accelerate. We see the distance forming in the relationship between Egoyan and his wife; meanwhile, Egoyan opens up to his date about the Armenian foster child he supports.

At this point, I had mentally upgraded my evaluation of the film to at least a 2. But shortly thereafter, the film reverted to its previous boring tone.

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