Ani (Arsinée Khanjian, left) oversees a fictional version of the real Armenian genocide.

Atom Egoyan’s Ararat opens with a close shot of paintbrushes. In the background stands an easel and, nearby, artist Arshile Gorky (Simon Abkarian). It’s around 1934, and he’s painting a portrait of himself and his mother. At this moment, he’s paused, contemplating. Just what he’s thinking about however, remains unclear.

Quietly, this first scene sets up everything that follows, including its evocation of Gorky's own troubled past. He survived the Armenian massacre by the Turkish army during World War I, losing his mother in the city of Van, near Mount Ararat. Beyond recounting this story, Ararat investigates the nature of storytelling, the reasons for particular stories and the ways that stories are interpreted. History and familial lore, memory and imagination, become a collection of stories that are told and retold, repressed and refashioned to suit needs -- emotional, political and economic.

From here, the movie follows a zig-zag route (characteristic of Egoyan's work), moving in and out of times and settings, breaking down characters' experiences, recollections and self-images. Gorky is the subject of scrutiny throughout the film, by multiple writers and readers. Art historian Ani (Arsinée Khanjian) has written a provocative new book on Gorky, citing his survival of the massacre as a source for his art. In turn, she's hired to consult on a film about the genocide by screenwriter Rouben (Eric Bogosian) and director Edward Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), seeking just such an identifiable character to propel their commercial enterprise.

All being of Armenian descent, each has personal stake in telling the story of the genocide, which the Turkish government won't acknowledge to this day (and has led to some "controversy" surrounding the film). This story also moves the actors to rethink some of their own self-identifications. Martin (Bruce Greenwood) plays American missionary Clarence Ussher, whose 1917 memoir, An American Physician in Turkey, grounds Rouben's script and provides grisly imagery. And the half-Turkish Ali (Elias Koteas), who admits, "I never heard about any of this stuff when I was growing up," plays Jevdet Bey, who slaughters hundreds at Van.

This film-within-the-film, also called Ararat, occasions the story of yet another character, Ani's 18-year-old son Raffi (David Alpay). Hired as a PA, he's coming back from Turkey with canisters that he claims are filled with location footage. Stopped by a Toronto customs officer named David (Christopher Plummer), Raffi spends the night recounting how he came to be in this place, at this time. As he talks, the film cuts back and forth, from this present, to Raffi's flashbacks, Gorky's trauma and Ani's efforts to reconcile conflicting aims: to be truthful and to get the story told.

It turns out that Ani is dealing with trauma of her own. Her first husband, Raffi's father, was killed while trying to assassinate a Turkish politician; her second, father to Raffi's stepsister Celia (Marie-Josée Croze), killed himself when he learned she betrayed him. Celia, now sleeping with Raffi, repeatedly confronts Ani, trying to find out what "really happened." This leaves Raffi with a raggedly divided sense of loyalty, and neither woman is able to see the other's needs or Raffi's pain.

As usual in an Egoyan film, such tangled familial relationships inspire chaos and meanness as much as understanding and generosity. Elegant and deliberate in its evocation of these terrible but also revelatory experiences, Ararat is both intellectual and deeply passionate. As David listens to Raffi's tale, he's clearly fascinated, even sympathetic, but also distracted. Flashbacks reveal that he too is undergoing domestic strain -- his son (who happens to be sleeping with Ali) accuses him of homophobia, and threatens not to let him see his grandson. Thus David's reaction to Raffi, much like Raffi's to his mother or Ani's to Celia, is produced in part by his own desires -- to have revenge, make things "right," or make sense of all the tumult in his own life or in Raffi's.

Raffi shows David the digital video diary he made during his trip to Turkey, visiting shrines (and Ararat) that he knows are important to Ani's research, her personal investments and sense of identity. The frame is segmented, showing the video and Raffi's face, as well as David's reactions. This layering -- ancient artifacts, contemporary technology, sober human reflection -- depicts, in an instant, Ararat's project, its study of the interrelated processes of reception and belief.

David must choose to believe -- what's in the film cans, what Raffi intends, what's the "best" thing to do. And here again, Gorky's story is helpfully emblematic. When, near the end of Ararat, the artist has nearly completed his painting, he destroys the section showing his mother's hands, so that the portrait remains unfinished. Of all the violences depicted in the film, this is perhaps the most visceral, and it makes clear that no single history, whether personal or collective, can be complete.