Another View 2016 / Exil / Cambodia, France 2016
After The Missing Picture (2013), Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh has returned to considerations of revolutions in general and, in particular, the one he experienced in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power. His new film is more abstract, but the combination of archive material and staged scenes achieves a similar level of informative value.
After The Missing Picture, Cambodian director Rithy Panh has returned to considerations of the revolution he experienced in his homeland, but he also ponders the meaning of exile. Here he creates another very personal documentary, more abstract than the one that came before, using a combination of archive footage and photographs from Pol Pot’s dictatorship; he also includes carefully selected images and commentary, in which newly written text blends with citations – from Mao Zedong to Robespierre. He drew material from historical sources, but even more so from family photographs and from objects he owns or that he found in exile. In an apparent evocation of the spirit of Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog, the work presents images, various equipment, old phonograph records, and a plethora of pictures of unfinished dinners that remained after the forced evacuation in April 1975 on the day the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia. Panh’s poetic essay about a different state-organized mass murder holds a similar warning.
Eva Zaoralová (2012)
78 min / Color, DCP
Director Rithy Panh
/ Screenplay Rithy Panh, Agnès Senemaud, Christophe Bataille
/ Dir. of Photography Rithy Panh, Mesat Prum
/ Music Marc Marder
/ Editor Rithy Panh
/ Art Director Mang Sarith, Sang Nan
/ Producer Catherine Dussart
/ Production CDP
/ Coproduction ARTE, Bophana production
/ Cast Sang Nan, Randal Douc
/ Sales Playtime
Rithy Panh (b. 1964, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) and his entire family were persecuted by the Khmer Rouge, although 15-year-old Panh managed to escape to Thailand. He later made his way to France where he studied at IDHEC film school. He has shot a number of documentaries, some with elements of fiction. The drama Rice People (1994), about a family struggling to survive after the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, competed at Cannes and was the first Cambodian film to vie for an Academy Award. He brought his experiences of family tragedy to the doc The Missing Picture (2013), which triumphed in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2013 and was subsequently presented at Karlovy Vary. His country’s dark times are also reflected in the new documentary essay Exile, screened out of competition this year at Cannes.
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