Documentaries

S 21, LA MACHINE DE MORT KHMÈRE ROUGE

S 21, THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE
Rithy Panh
Cambodia, FRA 2003
101 min
V'03

In a film of almost unfathomable rigour, two survivors of the notorious S 21 detention centre in Phnom Penh join a dozen of their one-time captors in the now deserted
facility. The former guards go through their daily tasks, the former prisoners take us through their daily humiliations and terrors. As in Claude Lanzmanns work, Panhs film builds its moral (and legal) case slowly, painstakingly detail by detail. Unlike Lanzmann, Panh doesnt set himself up as an intermediary. He allows Vann Nath, the more vocal of the two survivors, to confront his old enemies on his town. But are they enemies? In Cambodia a nation was turned against itself, and the difference between those recruited by the party and those the party slated for annihilation is almost nil: the luck of the draw. The most alarming moments in this sober, quietly commanding film are the stalemates between Vann Nath and the guards: predictably tense, unpredictably polite, ending in a state of becalmed bafflement. (Kent Jones)

Credits
  • Rithy Panh
  • Rithy Panh
  • Prum Mésar
  • Sear Vissal
  • Marie-Christine Rougerie
  • Isabelle Roudy
  • Marc Marder
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Video (Betacam SP)
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