Projected Nation and Projected Self

Calendar is the fifth film by Atom Egoyan, a filmmaker who straddles Canadian cinema and Armenian cinema thanks to the director’s background, which integrates Egyptian, Armenian and Canadian identities. It was made in 1993, right after Armenia restored its independence after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. In this immediate postcommunist time, the drastic political transition from a command economy to a market economy, from authoritarianism to democracy, and from fixed singularism to fluid pluralism, proceeded to different degrees and at various speeds in different post-USSR countries, with an unclear destination. ¹ Instead of abiding by a clearly defined black-and-white dual system, systems and organizations become fluctuous, multifaceted and polyphonic, with the emergence of new nation-states. The old model of communism was discarded; the communist power system was rejected, as well as what was perceived to be external domination. The bi- and multilateral international relationships between newly independent small nation states thus became more pluralistic, unstable, complex and in some aspects egalitarian. Yet a large amount of baggage from the past remained, such as vibrant private networks, distrust of political institutions, weak civil society and high expectations of leaders. As new values were not yet established, it was impossible to straightforwardly adopt an alternative system. This resulted in dynamism, contradiction and instability, which included redrawing of geopolitical boundaries and questioning of national identities. ² Thus, the societies of postcommunism, after the immediate optimistic, euphoric stage, plunged into fluctuation, where a consensus over identity and social contract needed to be reformed. This can be observed in Egoyan’s film whereby crystals are formed by the juxtaposition between present and past, the actual and the virtual, the national and the individual, and Canada and Armenia.