According
to estimates, the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime executed ninety percent Cambodia’s creative
artists and performers. During their
reign of terror, the nation’s once thriving film industry was also literally decimated. Decades later, a filmmaker and a sculptor combined
their talents to chronicle Cambodia’s years of madness with unusual power and
grace. Rithy Panh is arguably the
foremost documentarian chronicling the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, but to tell
his family’s story he enlisted the skills of French Cambodian artist Sarith
Mang. Where once there were no surviving
images, Mang’s carved figures bring the tragic past back to life in Panh’s The Missing Picture (clip here), which screens
during the 51st New York Film Festival.
While
the Khmer Rouge churned out plenty of propaganda, they were more circumspect in
documenting their own crimes. That left
plenty of holes for Panh to fill in, as his title suggests. With the help of Mang’s course yet eerily
expressive clay figurines, Panh recreates the torturous conditions he somehow
lived through, but claimed the lives of his parents, nephews, and little
sister, one by one.
Panh’s
decision to use Mang’s figures and richly detailed diorama backdrops might
sound bizarrely hyper-stylized, but it is shockingly effective. Frankly, the
scenes depicting the horrifying death of Panh’s sister are nothing less than
devastating. It is an unlikely approach,
but it directly conveys the emotional essence of the circumstances.
To
better understand the extent of what was lost, Panh periodically looks back at
happier, pre-Khmer Rouge days as well. Again,
he compellingly evokes of tactile sense of those innocent times. Viewers can practically smell the spices at
the neighborhood parties as they listen to a hip local rendition of Wilson
Pickett’s “Midnight Hour.”
Rarely
has a documentary ever been so exquisitely crafted. Each and every one of Mang’s
figures is a work of art, perfectly lit and lensed by cinematographer Prum Mésa
to bring out their full eloquence. Composer Marc Marder supports the visuals
with what might be the most mournful film score since Schindler’s List. It is a
film that resounds with raw pain and defiant honesty (aside from a dubious bit
of moral equivalence regarding western capitalism, probably tossed out to mollify
festival programmers).
