White Building: Urban Renewal in Cambodia

This former Phenom Penh landmark was not important architecturally. Frankly, it was an ugly eye-sore. However, it was a potent symbol of how things now work in Cambodia. They were originally constructed to serve as affordable working-class housing, but became home to many low-level government officials in the years after the Khmer Rouge madness. In 2017, it was sold to developers, who evicted residents, with the current government’s blessings. Twentysomething-ish Nang watches it happen, knowing he and fellow residents have little power to resist in Kavich Neang’s White Building, which opens today in Brooklyn.

Neang knows the so-called “White Building” well. He was raised there and recorded the traumatic evictions in the documentary, Last Night I Saw You Smiling. This follow-up film is technically a fictional narrative, but it has a loose structure and docu-realistic vibe, stylistically akin to the films of Jia Zhangke and Davy Chou, who took on producer roles for the White Building.

Nang definitely serves as surrogate for Neang, as he fatalistically watches his way of life disintegrate. Nang’s great ambition was to perform on Cambodia’s TV talent show as part of a hip hop dance trio, but the group break-ups when their frontman moves to France, to join his cousins. His father is the fictional chief of the White Building’s residence association, but Nang instinctively understands the old man’s passivity can never effectively unify the group or prompt any kind of constructive response from the development company. Likewise, he can predict only too well how his father’s similar approach to his infected toe will turn out.

In the Life of Music: Cambodia’s Most Recent Oscar Submission

There are many contradictory stories regarding the fate of Sinn Sisamouth during the Cambodian genocide, but as a popular, Western-influenced entertainer, they invariably end with his death. He is almost certainly gone, but his music is not forgotten. In fact, his beloved standard, “Champa Battambang” plays an important role for a rural Cambodian family, before, during, and after the horrors of the killing fields in director-screenwriters Caylee So & Sok Visal’s In the Life of Music, announced to release today on VOD.

Amid the relative calm of 2007, Cambodian-American Hope has returned to her ailing mother’s homeland, to meet and make peace with her Aunt Bo and Uncle Vanny. They are both thrilled to host her. Somehow her mother survived and left them behind, but they cannot blame her for that.

As Hope and Vanny make their way to his provincial village, the film flashes back to 1968, when her parents, Chy and Phally, fell in love during a special summer concert. Their first meeting was a little awkward, but the chemistry was there and the closing performance of “Champa Battambang” totally sealed the deal. Of course, they try to stay together to some extent during the concentration camp horrors of 1976, but it is not easy. Chy is also running a risk befriending Mith, a former songwriter transparently based on Sisamouth. Initially, he is a target for the Khmer Rouge’s contempt, until they decided Angkor needs an inspiring propaganda song, but he might not have the stomach for such a commission.

In the Life is a solid decade spanning family drama performed with great sensitivity by its aptly-cast ensemble. The editing could have been leaner and tighter, but So & Visal definitely convey a vivid sense of a very particularly place, at very distinct times. You can feel the heat and the humidity wafting off the screen. Small World Small Band’s musical numbers, performed as the 1968 traveling band, will also stimulate waves of viewer nostalgia, even if you are unfamiliar with 1960s Cambodian pop music.

Rithy Panh’s Graves Without a Name

The history of Communism is littered with mass graves, from the Holodomor in Ukraine to the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Coming to terms with the past is particularly difficult in the Southeast Asian country for at least two reasons. For one thing, the Khmer Rouge is still in power. They simply changed their name and rebranded themselves. Even more troubling for families, the lack of proper burials makes it nearly impossible to hold the Buddhist rituals necessary to help loved ones move on with their after-life. Acclaimed filmmaker Rithy Panh searches for his father’s earthly remains in the meditative documentary, Graves Without a Name, which releases today on DVD.

Even though they often focus on the crushing enormity of the Cambodian genocide, Panh’s documentaries tend to be acutely personal in scope. In The Missing Piece, his defining masterwork (thus far), Panh told his family’s tragic history with carved wooden figurines. Graves is possibly even more personal, but less narrative-driven. We watch as Panh undergoes purification ceremonies to prepare him for further rites that will hopefully lead to the location of his father’s body. However, it seems there is just too much mournful static around the work camp where his father was executed.

In between rituals, Panh intersperses long-take interviews with genocide survivors. One was a peasant “Old Person,” who initially fought with the Khmer Rouge before becoming sickened by their torture, rape, and mass murder. The other was a much abused and despised “New Person” from the city. Both give harrowing testimony in a matter-of-fact tone produced by their resignation they will never see justice done in their lifetimes.

There have been many documentaries produced on the Cambodian genocide (several of them by Panh), but the crimes described in Without a Name still pack a visceral punch. At times, Panh’s closeness to the subject matter leads to a slight blurriness of focus and Randal Douc’s French narration is undeniably overwritten, but the power of this film remains raw and immediate.

Fantasia ’19: The Prey

Joel McCrae in the original 1932 Most Dangerous Game film was the exception. The villains in every subsequent people-hunting movie always have a knack for choosing the worst possible quarry, like Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target, Michael Dudikoff in Avenging Force, and Ice-T in Surviving the Game. Undercover Chinese cop Xin is cut from the same butt-kicking cloth. When he winds up in an off-the-books Cambodian prison, he will have to survive the warden’s special hunt in Jimmy Henderson’s The Prey, which had its Canadian premiere at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Xin was working undercover infiltrating a gang of cyber-thieves targeting China when he was swept up in a local bust. Justice is swift in Phenom Penh, so he soon finds himself remanded to a remote jungle prison. Not surprisingly, his martial arts skills earn him a spot in the latest hunt the warden organizes for carefully selected customers. This time, his regular client Mat has brought along his fabulously wealthy but ragingly psychotic nephew “T,” so good times are sure to be had.

Of course, Xin will be gosh-darned difficult to kill. As a further complicating wrinkle, his Chinese colleagues will follow the tracking device in his confiscated Rolex, but they are definitely out of their element. Essentially, Xin will have to rely on himself—maybe getting a small degree of help from the thief who also survives the initial culling with him.

Yes, this kind of story has been done many times before. Some films have offered more interesting twists, but Henderson keeps it simple, preferring to rely on the action chops of newcomer Gu Shangwei. Fortunately, he has the moves and the grit, resembling a cross between Tiger Chen and vintage Jimmy Wang Yu.

Gu should earn himself a lot of attention for his work in Prey, but as of now, Vithaya Pansringarm is probably the best-known cast-member. Recognizable to western audiences for portraying the corrupt warden in A Prayer Before Dawn and the corrupt warden in Mechanic: Resurrection, this time around Pansringarm plays—the corrupt warden. It’s like he has become the Strother Martin of Southeast Asia.

Byron Bishop and Nophand Boonyai also make strong secondary villains, so viewers can anticipate plenty of cathartic payback. Italian expat Henderson never gets too fancy, but the legit rain forest settings definitely give it a humid atmosphere of authenticity. The Prey has been billed as Cambodia’s first million-dollar action movie, but its charms are really more that of grungy old school beat-downs. Easily recommended for straight-up action fans, The Prey had its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

CUFF ’19: Last Night I Saw You Smiling

It is a shame when anything that predates the Khmer Rouge is lost, even when it is an ugly Brutalist architectural behemoth. Such was the case with the so-called “White Building” in Phnom Penh. Kavich Neang documents the chaotic relocation process for three families (including his own) in Last Night I Saw You Smiling, which screens tomorrow during the 2019 Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Originally known as the Municipal Apartments, the White Building was constructed in 1963 to be affordable, working-class housing. When the Khmer Rouge took power and emptied the cities, the forced evacuation of the White Building became a microcosmic symbol of the national madness. After the fall of the regime, the building maintained its cultural importance as the residence for many local artists and government officials, despite the poor level of upkeep.

With the help of the new property owners, the White Building was finally condemned. Many of the neighbors Neang captures on-screen openly compare their second exodus to the horrifying events of 1975, even though this time they are getting financial compensation. Perhaps not so surprisingly, many of the residents are openly skeptical regarding whether the government and developer will come through with the promised funds—probably with good reason.

Frankly, Last Night is more of an anthropological record than a documentary that is appropriate for general consumers. Although Neang incorporates several intimate musical performances, he does not concretely establish any of the residents’ personalities or their relationships to one another. The one refreshing exception is his charming aunt, who could have been a star vocalist, were it not for her shyness.

Ironically, viewers will get a vivid, tactile sense of what the building was like during its final days—and it looks alarmingly unsafe, as if a strong breeze could have toppled the crumbling walls. It is regretful to witness this community being dissolved, much like the hutongs in Beijing, but nobody watching the film will be able to dismiss the safety concerns. Recommended only for admirers of uncompromising observational documentarians like Wang Bing and J.P.Sniadecki, Last Night I Saw You Smiling screens tomorrow (6/9) during this year’s Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Davy Chou’s Diamond Island

Judging from the throngs of bare-headed riders cruising their motorbikes around the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia is quite lax when it comes to helmet laws. The same is true of workplace safety regulations. Building the luxury condos on Koh Pich is a hard way to make $150 a month, but it still represents a good gig for Bora and his three meathead companions. Unfortunately, romantic jealousies and on-site accidents will fray their friendships in Davy Chou’s Diamond Island (trailer here), which begins a week-long engagement this Thursday at MoMA.

Koh Pic (“Diamond Island” in English) was once just a spit of sand in the Tonlé Sap-Mekong River confluence, where only a handful of hardscrabble fishermen lived. Now it is the anticipated home of Cambodia’s nouveau riche and the weekend hang-spot for Phnom Penh teen hipsters. Although Bora and his pals are roughly the same age as the latter, they still have trouble relating. It is a class thing, but somehow Bora’s long lost older brother Solei managed to transcend it. After cutting ties with the family, Solei managed to land an American sponsor for his studies and fell in with a privileged and pretty crowd.

Their reunion is awkward, but not completely without affection. In fact, Solei promises Bora entrée into his world of comparative opportunity, but he insists on firewalls separating him from their family and Bora’s luggish pals. That inevitably leads to tension, especially with Bora’s childhood best friend, Dy. However, he will risk Solei’s displeasure when he starts seeing Aza, a pretty resident of a legacy Koh Pich shanty-settlement.

Diamond Island probably sounds like an exercise in slow cinema miserablism, but it is more plotting and pacey than cineastes might expect, especially if they have seen Chou’s somewhat diffuse narrative short Cambodia 2099. It still cannot match the power of Golden Slumber, his exploration of the Cambodian film industry devastated by the Khmer Rouge, but that film is close to being a documentary masterpiece.

In any event, sexual frustration, sibling tension, and dangerous work conditions are all the stuff of highly-relatable human drama. Chou’s cast of nonprofessional actors (at least until now) are completely natural-looking, utterly without affectation, and mostly right on the money. Frankly, they give the film a docu-hybrid feeling. However, Chou and cinematographer Thomas Favel often counteract that vibe with their visually striking use of saturated colors and neon-noir nightscapes. They also capitalize on the sprawling city vistas to overwhelm their characters, like insignificant ants.

It is hard to say whether Diamond Island makes viewers more or less likely to visit Phnom Penh and Koh Pich. The nightlife looks fun, but you wouldn’t want to work there. There is a bittersweet grace to the film that deserves to be seen. Its festival prominence is also significant for a Cambodian film industry struggling to rebuild itself, so you have to wonder how the decision to select Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father as Cambodia’s foreign language Oscar submission sits with Chou and company. Regardless, New Yorkers will have seven nights to see Diamond Island when it opens this Thursday (10/12) at MoMA.

LAAPFF ’17: Turn Left Turn Right

Life is messy in Phnom Penh, but there is a whole lot of it going on. This constitutes a welcome departure from a re-emerging Cambodian film industry that has been understandably focused on the genocide committed by the Communist Khmer Rouge. Unfortunately, a more workaday promise of death intrudes into the would-be free-spirited Kanitha’s life in Douglas Seok’s Turn Left Turn Right, which screens during the 2017 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Kanitha’s personal style is influenced by the groovy 1960s pop stars, like the ones we see go-go dancing in Angkor monuments in the opening scene. However, she is supposed to act much staider in today’s more socially reserved Cambodia. Her mother wants her to marry, but Kanitha is not down with that. Kanitha’s mother also wants her to start coming to terms with her father’s failing health. That will be difficult for the in-the-moment young woman, but it will be a lot likelier to happen than a wedding.

Although it is a smidge less than seventy minutes, Turn still manages to be impressionistic and intentionally collage-like. Inspired by concept albums, Seok divides the film into twelve tracks, but none of them would really stand apart as a film in themselves—except for maybe the wildly fun interludes of retro dancing ladies getting down.

Weirdly, Turn might have been more entertaining if it had been even less focused on narrative and just gone all in on the old school musical numbers. Nevertheless, Kanitha Tith gives a wonderful subtle yet expressive performance as Kanitha. It is also nice to see Dy Saveth, the Cambodian movie star who survived all her movies, perform an internet dance that Kanitha fixates on.

Cinematographer Steve Chen soaks up the awe of the ancient archaeological sites and coastal beaches. The vintage pop tunes also sound as fresh as cool spring water. However, the drama is relentlessly naturalistic and often somewhat listless. Still, it is just good to see Cambodian filmmakers starting to explore and take chances. Recommended for fans of Cambodian pop and introspective cinema, Turn Left Turn Right screens today (5/1) and next Tuesday (5/9) as part of this year’s LAAPFF.

Doc Fortnight ’16: France is Our Mother Country

If you could chose a country to be your colonial power, there is no question it would be the United Kingdom. They sure knew how to train civil servants. On the other hand, nobody would voluntarily opt for France. Although they were not quite as bad as the Belgians, the French have had the hardest time accepting the end of the colonial era, often with tragic results. Rwanda certainly proved both points when it became the first non-UK colony to join the British Commonwealth. It had been French. Rithy Panh echoes that critical ambivalence towards the French colonial experience in his archival docu-essay, France is Our Mother Country (clip here), which screens as part of the 2016 Doc Fortnight at MoMA.

Nothing screams “imperialist” like a white suit and a pith helmet. Apparently, that was the uniform of choice for French colonial oligarchs in Indochina. In his spliced together pseudo-narrative, Panh captures plenty of similarly outfitted Frenchmen overseeing factory and plantation work or getting drunk at garden parties. Their images have not aged well, but that is why they are so on-point for Panh.

Essentially, the film’s arc can be summed up as “they came, they exploited, and they left the land in political and military chaos.” However, despite their damning fashion sense and the air-headed French party girls cavorting on sacred religious sites, Mother Country never lowers the final coup de grâce. In fact, the footage of a 1920s or 1930s rain forest medical clinic looks relatively progressive, especially for the times.

Panh has a shrewd eye for imagery, but he never fully establishes a clear cause-and-effect chain of events linking the French imperialist adventurism of the early Twentieth Century with the Communist madness of the late Twentieth Century. He also indulges in the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel when quoting one of the era’s painfully virulent racial theorists. Yet, Marc Marder nearly saves the day singlehandedly with his distinctive, frequently jazz-influenced score.

Aside from Panh’s subversive editorial sensibilities, there is not so much to take-away from Mother Country. It lacks the beauty, grace, and anger of his Oscar-nominated masterwork The Missing Piece, but that is a hard film to be judged against. Perhaps this represents a pragmatic strategy for a follow-up, precisely because it is so different. Almost recommended solely for Marder’s themes (rather than Panh’s), France is Our Mother Country is mostly just grist for professional Third World Studies majors when it screens again tonight (2/24) as part of this year’s Doc Fortnight at MoMA.

SBIFF ’16: Dream Land

It still stings to be rejected by a lover, even if your country has a painful history of genocide. These are the “First World” problems faced by Lida, a successful up-market real estate agent, whose territory encompasses Phnom Penh. Life does not just carry on for her and her friends. It careens at light speed. A different sort of Cambodian experience comes to light in American-born-and-based Steve Chen’s Dream Land (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Lida (Da) is good at her job, but maybe she doesn’t even have to be all that competent. Phenom Penh is booming. To show a luxury condo is to sell it. It does not hurt that she has a good look either. She would turn most men’s heads, but since her current lover Kun is a fashion photographer, his constant contact with beautiful women has apparently made him fickle. He has rarely been around in recent weeks, but when Lida has seen him, his passive aggressive frostiness has left her hurt and confused.

Lida will deal with her frustrations in a variety of ways. Some could come straight out of Sex and the City, but eventually she tries to recharge with a trip to the ancient Imperial coastal retreat of Kep. Yet, even there she finds signs of burgeoning development and commercialization.

Cambodian super model Lida Duch and her previous co-star Sokun Nhem are apparently quite popular from the blockbuster Khmer fantasy Sbek Kong, but local audiences will probably be a tad confused by Chen’s slow cinema-ish approach. Strictly speaking, it is true not a lot happens, but that is greatly reflective of real life. Indeed, Chen is very much interested in the pop songs, romance comic books, and karaoke bars that help the harried modern Cambodian get through the day. Frankly, that probably makes Dream Land considerably more interesting for international viewers on the outside looking in, rather than domestic patrons who are already immersed in this environment.

However, what really distinguishes the film is Duch’s remarkable performance. It is quietly reserved work, but powerfully vulnerable and emotionally brittle. She can say a lot with very little, so the camera just adores her. Frankly, it is hard to fairly judge Nhem as his near namesake, because what few scenes he has are so thoroughly stacked against him. Basically, he comes in and acts like a jerkheel, while Chen keeps him relegated to the far, out-of-focus corner of the frame. In contrast, Hak Kim is painfully empathic as the mutual friend so obviously carrying a torch for Lida.

Dream Land is not exactly a milestone of global cinema, but it is still exciting to see Cambodian film industry continue to rebuild itself following the almost complete destruction the country’s cinema heritage under the Communist insanity of the Khmer Rouge. Chen has already been a part of that effort, working as part of the camera crew on Davy Chou’s masterful Golden Slumbers. (Chou in turn served as an associate producer on Dream Land.) At this point, each Cambodian film is still important as another building block in that effort, but Chen’s film is also significant for bringing Duch international recognition. Despite the art house pacing, Dream Land has considerable merits. Recommended for sophisticated patrons, it screens tomorrow (2/8) and Tuesday (2/9), as part of this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The Storm Makers, On POV, Presented by Rithy Panh

Wars have been fought to end slavery, but the cruel trade in humanity still flourishes internationally. Unfortunately, it is hard to take macro military action when neighbors and family members are the ones selling future generations into slavery. Guillaume Suon and co-writer-assistant director Phally Ngoeum examine human trafficking in Cambodia from three uncomfortably intimate perspectives in The Storm Makers (promo here), produced and “presented” by Academy Award nominee Rithy Panh, which premieres this coming Monday on PBS as part of the current season of POV.

The titular Storm Makers are the human traffickers who barnstorm through provincial villages, luring the young and unemployed into bondage with false promises. Their victims are predominantly but not exclusively women, much like Aya. It was her own mother, perhaps half-knowingly, who sold her into slavery. However, like a flesh-and-blood ghost, Aya returned with stories of harrowing sexual abuse and a toddler, who was the product of repeated rapes. It has not been a happy homecoming for either woman.

In some ways, Aya’s mother is not so different from Ming Dy, who works as a “tout” recruiting girls from neighboring villages. She also sold her own daughter, which has irrevocably poisoned her relationship with her outraged Buddhist husband. Suon and Ngoeum follow the food chain up to Pou Houy, an unrepentant Storm Maker and massively hypocritical Evangelical Christian. His “employment agency” is a transparent front for trafficking, yet he has a steady stream of walk-in victim-clients. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Suon’s film is just how many people knowingly take a very bad gamble, simply because they see no other options.

Storm Makers is a quietly observational talking-head-free-zone, but it captures enough evil in action to make anyone’s blood run cold—provided they are of good conscience. Suon make it agonizingly clear just how corrosive a problem trafficking is in the long term, even for a relatively “lucky” survivor like Aya. In fact, the damage wrought to her psyche will knock you back on your heels.

Frankly, it is a little baffling how a film produced and blessed by Panh (who helmed the Oscar nominated The Missing Picture) never secured a high profile festival screening in New York, even though it snagged awards at Full Frame and Busan. Regardless, hats off to POV for programming it. Yet, screenings and broadcasts of Storm Makers are even more desperately needed in Cambodia, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan, where so many trafficked Cambodians end up.

This might sound wildly eccentric, but perhaps the Cambodian government’s time would be better spent cracking down on traffickers like Pou Houy than censoring and campaigning against soon-to-be-forgotten Hollywood movies like No Escape. Of course, there is no way the illicit trafficking trade could thrive for so long, without plenty of high level looking the other way. While Storm Makers can be unsettling to watch, it holds viewers riveted in a vice-like grip. Guaranteed to inspire outrage and diminish your appraisal of human nature (so therefore highly recommended), The Storm Makers debuts on POV this coming Monday (8/31).

NYAFF ’15: The Last Reel

Approximately 300 films were produced during the “Golden Age” of Cambodian cinema, but only thirty survived the barbarity of the Communist Khmer Rouge. That means one missing reel of an otherwise intact Cambodian feature is as maddeningly and tantalizingly significant as the legendary lost bits of The Magnificent Ambersons. One young Cambodian woman sets out to find or recreate such footage, but her search will bring her face-to-face with history both national and personal in Sotho Kulikar’s The Last Reel (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.

Sophoun is at a crossroads. Disinterested in school and disinclined to submit to her military father’s arranged marriage, she has been avoiding home life as much as possible. Unfortunately, that also means she has neglected her increasingly age-addled mother. Having fallen in with a delinquent crowd, she is forced to take refuge one night in a decrepit old movie theater. Much to her surprise, she finds a movie poster with her mother’s face prominently displayed.

As she learns from the standoffish proprietor, her mother was once a movie star, known as Sothea and he has the only print of her final film. In fact, he compulsively screens it every night, but alas, it is incomplete. Yet, that initially adds to its allure for Sophoun. Did her mother’s character chose the prince she was betrothed to, or the peasant who saved her from a jealous nobleman?

Even with the former filmmaker-projectionist’s help, Sophoun has no luck tracking down either the missing reel or the original screenplay. However, her bad boy boyfriend and the university film department will help recreate the conclusion. At this point, they head into the field, which turns out to be part of the Killing Fields. As her reluctant movie mentor’s memories come flooding back, things start getting interesting for all concerned.

The loss of Cambodia’s cinematic heritage is a true tragedy, especially since those Angkor costume epics look so amazing. The Long Way Home, the film-within-the-film, gives us an enticing hint of what they were like. However, Sotho and screenwriter Ian Masters incorporate Sothea’s film into the narrative in even deeper ways. Structurally, Reel is a very ambitious work—and they largely pull it off. There are a whole heck of a lot of third act revelations, but rather than feeling forced, they organically represent realities of post-Pol Pot Cambodian life.

Any film that brings Dy Saveth (considered the only living survivor of the Golden Age) back onto the silver screen earns its props right there. She is downright haunting as Sothea, especially given the meta-significance of her character. Nevertheless, it is Ma Rynet who must carry the film, being on-screen almost every second. Fortunately, she has more than the necessary energy and presence required. There is a certain unpolished naiveté to her performance that works quite well in the context of Masters’ narrative. Yet, it is prominent filmmaker Sok Sothun who really lowers the boom as the physically and spiritually scarred projectionist.

At times, Reel feels overstuffed with subplots and side-characters, but Sotho manages to tie them all up neatly enough to satisfy the demands of cinema. This film was necessarily a learning experience for many trying to rebuild the Cambodian film industry, so it is rather exciting to see it all come together down the stretch. The final product is sort of like a profoundly serious Cinema Paradiso. Highly recommended for those who care about the preservation and advancement of cinema as an art-form, The Last Reel screens this Sunday (7/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

LAAPFF ’15: Cambodia 2099 (short)

Koh Pich or Diamond Island is the Cambodian government’s showcase development zone, yet the young people who congregate there still think about leaving. For two friends, this will probably entail one-way tickets, but the nature of their travel will be radically different in Davy Chou’s short film, Cambodia 2099 (clip here), which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles AsianPacific Film Festival.

If their dreams are any guide, both Kavich and Sotha will soon be leaving Phnom Penh. The former will be joining his mother in Stockton as a conventional immigrant, while the latter believes the secret of time travel has been revealed to him. Naturally, it involves a crash helmet and red pajamas. Not so surprisingly, it will be Kavich rather than Sotha who leaves behind a girlfriend, but he is not so eager to have that farewell conversation with Vanary.

Chou’s feature documentary Golden Slumbers was so exquisitely moving his next project would probably be something of a let-down no matter what it was. Throughout 2099 he again displays a keen eye for visuals, but the tone and focus are somewhat inconsistent, which is a problem for a short film. Nevertheless, it heralds the remarkable debut of actress Sothea Vann. In many ways, she brings to mind Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo, as two formerly free-spirited party girls who are coming to terms with the disappointments of reality.

So should Cambodia’s future generations stay or should they go? Cambodia’s political and economic systems are obvious more firmly rooted in law than say forty years ago, but they still leave much to be desired. It would be convenient if Sotha could turn forward the hands of the clock to see whether it is worth staying to struggle for further improvements. Either way, there will be an increasing pool of modern, largely westernized students, like Vanary.

Cambodia 2099 was conceived as a way for Chou’s collaborators to build confidence before he commenced filming a narrative feature, so in a way it is a perfect project to follow-up the widely celebrated Slumbers. Even if it is not a perfect short, he is clearly a talented filmmaker and Vann is a highly promising screen thesp. On balance, their work is still definitely worth watching in Cambodia 2099, when it screens tomorrow (4/29) as part of the Something Around the Corner short film block at this year’s LAAPFF.

NYFF ’13: The Missing Picture

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 51^st 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).  

Not a film to be shrugged off, The Missing Picture holds viewers completely rapt and haunts them for days after viewing.  Recommended for a considerably wider audience than traditional doc watchers, it screens this coming Monday (9/30) at the Beale Theater and Tuesday the eighth at the Gilman as an official selection of the 2013 NYFF.

NYAFF ’12: Golden Slumbers

Martin Scorsese needs to dispatch an emergency film preservation team to Cambodia.  From 1960 to 1975 about 450 films were produced in the Southeast Asian country.  However, only about thirty films survived the Khmer Rouge.  The Chinese-backed Communists considered cinema just another form of capitalist decadence (which is sort of true when it is really good).  NYAFF special guest Davy Chou surveys what was lost with the handful of surviving film industry veterans in his outstanding documentary Golden Slumbers (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival.

Despite seeming to have an “in” as the grandson of once prominent Cambodian director Vann Chan, many of the filmmakers who were able to escape execution (most of whom endured harsh transit conditions en-route to France) were initially reluctant to talk to Chou.  However, Yvon Hem eventually relents, taking Chou on a tour of his long abandoned Bird of Paradise studio (named for the Marcel Camus film that launched many film careers in the country, including his own).  Less reticent is Dy Saveth, the former Elizabeth Taylor of Cambodian film, now working as a dance instructor.  To this day, the hill where she once filmed a climactic scene still bears her name.

Obviously the genocidal murders and forced labor camps are the greater crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime.  Yet, the devastation of the nation’s cinema is not merely a footnote to the wider tragedy—it is a tragedy onto itself.  Listening to the movie patrons and movie-makers discussing their beloved films, now presumably lost forever, is deeply moving.  Clearly, lives and livelihoods were lost, but average Cambodian’s treasured memories and cultural heritage have also been destroyed by an ideology of death.  Watching Slumbers stirs the same emotions as the sight of a charred family photo album at a fire scene.

Slumbers also bear an unexpected but apt comparison to Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film, featuring many directors and actors forced to relate their films like oral history.  Yet Chou is able to convey a sense of them through movies posters, radio commercials, and soundtrack records (many of which remain widely popular).  He also stages his talking head interviews in ways that are often quite visually striking, making Slumbers unusually stylish, by documentary standards.

For any movie lover, the loss of any nation’s cinematic legacy is truly lamentable, but it is particularly so in this case.  From the tantalizing descriptions heard throughout Slumbers, many of the popular Cambodian films of the pre-Khmer Rouge era sound like high-end Bollywood, but incorporating darker supernatural and mythological elements.  Though it is impossible to know with certainty, if you are attending other NYAFF screenings, there is indeed a strong likelihood these films would have been your cup of tea.

One can only hope Chou’s documentary leads to the re-discovery of some of these lost treasures in forsaken film vaults someplace.  Nonetheless, as a film in its own right, Slumbers is quite accomplished.  It is an intelligently constructed and elegantly executed cinematic elegy that absolutely puts to shame the vacuous tributes to Hollywood glamour of recent vintage.  Profoundly moving, Slumbers is one of the best documentaries selected for a major festival this year.  Earning the highest of recommendations, Golden Slumbers screens this coming Tuesday (7/10) at the Walter Reade Theater.

SFIFF ’12: Golden Slumbers

Martin Scorsese needs to dispatch an emergency film preservation team to Cambodia.  From 1960 to 1975 about 450 films were produced in the Southeast Asian country.  However, only about thirty films survived the Khmer Rouge.  The Chinese-backed Communists considered cinema just another form of capitalist decadence (which is sort of true when it is really good).  Davy Chou surveys what was lost with the handful of surviving film industry veterans in his outstanding documentary Golden Slumbers (trailer here), which screens at the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 San Francisco International FilmFestival.

Despite being the grandson of the once prominent Cambodian director Vann Chan, many of the filmmakers who were able to escape execution (most of whom endured harsh transit conditions to seek refuge in France) were initially reluctant to talk to Chou.  However, Yvon Hem eventually relents, taking Chou on a tour of his long abandoned Bird of Paradise studio (named for the Marcel Camus film that launched many film careers in the country, including his own).  Less reticent is Dy Saveth, the former Elizabeth Taylor of Cambodian film, now working as a dance instructor.  To this day, the hill where she once filmed a climactic scene still bears her name.

Obviously the genocidal murders and forced labor camps are the greater crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime.  Yet, the devastation of the nation’s cinema is not merely a footnote to the wider tragedy—it is a tragedy onto itself.  Listening to the movie patrons and movie-makers discussing their beloved films, now presumably lost forever, is deeply moving.  Clearly, lives and livelihoods were lost, but average Cambodian’s treasured memories and cultural heritage have also been destroyed by an ideology of death.  Watching Slumbers stirs the same emotions as the sight of a charred family photo album at a fire scene.

Slumbers also bear an unexpected but apt comparison to Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film, featuring many directors and actors forced to relate their films like oral history.  Yet Chou is able to convey a sense of them through movies posters, radio commercials, and soundtrack records (many of which remain widely popular).  He also stages his talking head interviews in ways that are often quite visually stylish.

For any movie lover, the loss of any nation’s cinematic legacy is truly lamentable, but it is particularly so in this case.  From the tantalizing descriptions heard throughout Slumbers, many of the popular Cambodian films of the pre-Khmer Rouge era sound like high-end Bollywood, but incorporating darker supernatural and mythological elements.  Though it is impossible to know with certainty, if you are reading this review, there is indeed a strong likelihood these films would have been your cup of tea.

 

One can only hope Chou’s documentary leads to the discovery of some of these lost treasures in forsaken film vaults someplace.  Nonetheless, as a film in its own right, Slumbers is quite accomplished.  It is an intelligently constructed and elegantly executed cinematic elegy that absolutely puts to shame the vacuous tributes to Hollywood glamour that aired during the recent Academy Awards.  Profoundly moving, Slumbers is one of the best documentaries selected for a major festival this year.  It screens this coming Saturday (4/28) and the following Tuesday (5/1) and Thursday (5/3) during the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival.