HyeOctane

Haytayan is a survivor of the first genocide of the 20th century — the extermination by Turks of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians — which was the granddaddy, if you will, of all modern genocides, cited sometimes by historians as direct inspiration for Adolf Hitler and indirectly for Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, and the murderers of Rwanda and Darfur. This is the inescapable reality that informs the music and activism of System of a Down, a Los Angeles band whose four Armenian American members are all grandchildren of genocide survivors. Haytayan’s moving accounts of the destruction visited on his family and Tankian’s tender interactions with his frail grandfather lend a hopeful poignancy to the film, helping balance both the images of human annihilation and the band’s hard-edged vibe.

The film’s title has a double meaning: “Screamers” refers both to the band’s propulsive musical style and, as used by Harvard professor Samantha Power, who is interviewed in the film, to people who force the world to acknowledge atrocities that it would often rather ignore. [Read more]