The Role Of Churches In Calandar (1993)

In Atom Egoyan’s Calendar (1993), the role of the photographer transcends the position of a passive documentarian. Instead, he becomes a conduit through which the audience is invited to immerse themselves in a visage of a past romance that eludes the main character and tantalizes him. The still images he captures act as a portal to bittersweet memories, each a whisper of what once was, could have been, and irrevocably lost. Photography, in this context, is not a medium of art but a vehicle for reflection, guiding viewers through snapshots of a life that is marred by both intimacy and estrangement. As the photographer grapples with the decline of his marriage, the audience is forced to share his experiences of longing and nostalgia, compelled to identify with him and the camera by extension. This voyeuristic engagement reconciles with a world that oscillates between the past and the present, where every image evokes yearning amidst confusion and emotional turmoil.

While photography provides tangible evidence of the individual characters’ beauty and shortcomings, architecture is a significant narrative device that emphasizes the themes of the film. While the themes are communicated through relationships, the relationships explored in this film are not necessarily of a romantic nature. The relationships in the film encompass a connection to culture and heritage, the search for community, the fragility of memory, and the acceptance of personal identity. The central narrative demonstrates these themes as the audience follows a husband-and-wife duo who travel through Armenia, tasked with capturing images of churches for a calendar. Along the way, they are accompanied by a tour guide/driver who becomes the catalyst for the end of their marriage.

These churches, each in varying states of decay and grandeur, are not only physical locations but also represent emotional checkpoints that reflect the complexities of their evolving relationships. The architectural beauty and deterioration of these sacred spaces establish a tone that resonates with the tumultuous dynamics between the characters. In the cinematic framework, churches often symbolize a range of themes, including sanctity, refuge, and compassion, providing asylum for reflection and spaces for justice. However, they can also embody isolation, uncertainty, and control. The duality of this symbolism mirrors the characters’ struggles, such as when the photographer/husband rejects his wife’s offer to go on a walk so he can vindicate his suspicions about the nature of his wife’s relationship with their tour guide/driver.

In Calendar, the churches’ progressively deteriorating condition is a metaphor for the unraveling of the couple’s bond as they realize they desire different things and have opposing ways of approaching life. Throughout the film, the photographer/husband and his wife/translator butt heads over their individual purposes for visiting Armenia. The wife wishes to harbor a sense of community and soak up Armenia’s history/culture while the husband is there to complete a job. At one point he even admits that he would have never visited the country if his job had not assigned him to the calendar project. This admission deeply hurts his wife who steadily grasps that her husband is disconnected from a culture they both hail from. The driver also notices the barrier while he is educating them on the history of the churches. He becomes discouraged at the husband’s waning interest, lack of enthusiasm, and questions about things such as payment. The driver starts to question the purpose of relaying culturally relevant information when it is not received with meaningful consideration. The lack of reverence for the churches, and by extension, their heritage and culture, disappoints the wife enough that their differences drive a wedge between them.

It becomes increasingly apparent that the husband has a shallow understanding of their heritage with little interest in learning about his culture while visiting Armenia. While he is physically present, he is detached from the spiritual aspects of returning to his ancestral homeland. He is unconcerned with discovering the specific energies related to each church nor does he feel compelled to get a closer look at the sacred structures. Rather than interacting with his surroundings by touching them, just as his wife and driver do, he stands on the sidelines. This difference leaves a bad taste in the wife’s mouth, causing her to seek comfort from the driver, who is on the same page as her mentally and spiritually. The wife and driver’s chemistry is driven by their willingness to reflect and seek refuge not only in the churches by also in each other. The husband does not wish to acknowledge that truth until the end, but his participation is merely circumstantial and conditional, preferring to live through the camera. The camera enables him to enact the only sense of control he has during the trip. This control manifests through documentation of the experience instead of living in the moment as his wife did.

His attitude only feeds the distance growing in his marriage. As that happens, the holy structures start to appear in various states of deconstruction and the churches grow foreboding. The structure begins to dwarf the characters in the frame as his memory of the trip transforms. The husband is bombarded with memories that are less about the churches and more about the events that occurred in and around the churches. He recalls allowing himself to watch his wife and the driver form a blossoming romance while drenching themselves in a culture he does not understand. The husband exists as an outsider in his body and identity as well as in a land that his wife views as home. The wife views the Armenia trip as rejuvenating while the husband, unbeknownst to her, feels more isolated just like the churches spread out among miles of land. Towards the end of the film, he hits home that point by describing the churches as “A fortress in ruins” and remarking, “All that's meant to protect is bound to isolate. And all that's meant to isolate is bound to hurt."

The film invites a broader contemplation of the interplay between culture, community, connection, memory, identity, and self. The churches, as architectural embodiments of history and faith, evoke the fragility of memory which both transcends and centers the individual experiences of the characters. They serve as reminders of the shared human condition, where love, loss, and the search for meaning are universal.