The Promise (2016)
Mikael Boghosian is an apothecary who lives in the small Armenian village of Siroun in the southeast part of Turkey, within the Ottoman Empire. In order to help pay the expenses for medical school, he promises to marry Maral, the daughter of an affluent neighbor, receiving 400 gold coins as a dowry. This allows him to travel to Constantinople and attend the Imperial School of Medicine. There, he befriends Emre, the son of a high-ranking Ottoman official. Through his wealthy uncle, Mikael also meets Ana Khesarian, an Armenian woman raised in Paris, who is involved with an American reporter for the Associated Press, Chris Myers. Mikael falls in love with Ana just as international tensions begin to rise with the outbreak of World War I. Mikael temporarily manages to avoid conscription into the Ottoman Army through a medical student exemption with the help of Emre. When Mikael tries to save his uncle from imprisonment during the roundups of April 24, 1915, he is detained and sent to a labor camp, while Emre is conscripted.
Mikael eventually escapes the camp. Returning to his village, he finds that the townspeople of Turkish background have violently turned on their fellow townspeople of Armenian background. His parents, and particularly his mother, persuade him to marry Maral and seek refuge in a remote mountain cabin, where she soon becomes pregnant. A difficult pregnancy leads Mikael to bring his wife back to the care of his mother in the village. There he learns that Ana and Christopher are at a nearby Red Cross facility and he goes to seek their help for his family to escape the imminent Turkish threat. Departing the mission with a group of orphans, they head back to Siroun to retrieve Mikael’s family. Along the way, however, they encounter a site of a massacre, as it becomes clear all of Siroun’s inhabitants, including Mikael’s family, except his mother, have been killed by Ottoman troops. Mikael’s wife is found with their unborn child cut out from her body.
Date of download: 2015-11-11T17:22:34+00:00
Cast:  Oscar IsaacMikael Boghosian  Christian BaleChris Myers  Marwan KenzariEmre  Shohreh AghdashlooMarta  Angela SarafyanMaral  Daniel Giménez CachoReverend Dikran Antreassian  James CromwellHenry Morgenthau  Tom HollanderGarin  Numan AcarMustafa  Igal NaorMesrob  Tamer HassanFaruk Pasha  Rade SerbedzijaStephan  Jean RenoLouis Dartige du Fournet |
Charlotte Le BonMikael Boghosian is an apothecary who lives in the small Armenian village of Siroun in the southeast part of Turkey, within the Ottoman Empire. In order to help pay the expenses for medical school, he promises to marry Maral, the daughter of an affluent neighbor, receiving 400 gold coins as a dowry. This allows him to travel to Constantinople and attend the Imperial School of Medicine. There, he befriends Emre, the son of a high-ranking Ottoman official. Through his wealthy uncle, Mikael also meets Ana Khesarian, an Armenian woman raised in Paris, who is involved with an American reporter for the Associated Press, Chris Myers. Mikael falls in love with Ana just as international tensions begin to rise with the outbreak of World War I. Mikael temporarily manages to avoid conscription into the Ottoman Army through a medical student exemption with the help of Emre. When Mikael tries to save his uncle from imprisonment during the roundups of April 24, 1915, he is detained and sent to a labor camp, while Emre is conscripted.
Mikael eventually escapes the camp. Returning to his village, he finds that the townspeople of Turkish background have violently turned on their fellow townspeople of Armenian background. His parents, and particularly his mother, persuade him to marry Maral and seek refuge in a remote mountain cabin, where she soon becomes pregnant. A difficult pregnancy leads Mikael to bring his wife back to the care of his mother in the village. There he learns that Ana and Christopher are at a nearby Red Cross facility and he goes to seek their help for his family to escape the imminent Turkish threat. Departing the mission with a group of orphans, they head back to Siroun to retrieve Mikael’s family. Along the way, however, they encounter a site of a massacre, as it becomes clear all of Siroun’s inhabitants, including Mikael’s family, except his mother, have been killed by Ottoman troops. Mikael’s wife is found with their unborn child cut out from her body.
