“It was a crazily barbaric treatment” – Oscar winning actor Christian Bale on the Armenian Genocide

The impunity of the Armenian Genocide was the reason for the genocides that followed it, Oscar winning actor Christian Bale, who stars in the Armenian Genocide movie The Promise, said in an online interview with Yahoo Movies.

“I didn’t know about the Armenian Genocide before this movie. It is an incredibly important pivotal moment in history. The fact that there weren’t any consequences is the reason that there were so many genocides after it, like the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide.

When I was reading the script of the �lm, it was leading up to the 100th anniversary at that time, in 2015, people were coming more to light on the Armenian Genocide. I was watching the news and you see these people trapped in the mountain and they were being slaughtered by ISIS: and this film has an historic accurate part when the Armenians are trapped on a mountain, the Musa Dagh, and they were being slaughtered. And I couldn’t help but see the correlation. It was a crazily barbaric treatment, very vicious and vindictive, the way so many people were killed”, Bale said.

He also mentioned the character that he plays in the movie, an Associated Press reporter.

“You know, how essential it is to have a good press. Otherwise people don’t know the facts”, he said.

Drawing similarities between the present days, Bale mentioned the refugee crisis as result of the Syrian conflict. “The desert around Aleppo is full of bones. There were forced deportations, which were really death marches; they led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Many settled in Aleppo. Now there is the refugee crisis, and people are fleeing Aleppo”, Bale said.

The Oscar winning actor said he began to study the Armenian Genocide after reading the film’s script. Eric Esrailian, producer of The Promise, helped him in researching the issue. He gave Bale films and books on the Armenian Genocide.

“I didn’t have the chance to meet any survivor of the Genocide, however I’ve seen documentary movies with their participation. In those, I say the pain of the people who were forced to deal with people who insisted that the stories of their families aren’t true. It is heart breaking”, he said.