France, Cambodia / 2016 / 78 min. / Director: Rithy PANH
As with the director's previous film, "The Missing Picture," this film continues to deal with the Khmer Rouge years of Cambodia. It world-premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. In a small, cramped room, a young man believed to be PANH himself (this has not been confirmed) is shown living everyday life through a sometimes realistic, and sometimes fantastical portrayal. The film encourages viewers to contemplate the pervasive problem of the disparity between the ideal of revolution and the actual result it produces by referencing various images and slogans from the Khmer Rouge years along with text by MAO Tse-tung, the Jacobin Club of the French Revolution, among others. This is a masterpiece unlike PANH's previous films and should also be called a cinematic essay which poetically describes the historical tragedy of his homeland.
