Rithy Panh has covered this subject before. A survivor of the Cambodian killing fields, Panh documented life inside the notorious Toul Seng prison in the award-winning S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine where he questioned former prison officers and their roles in the torture. Returning to the same material, Panh isn't content to rehash and turns in something different with this winner of Un Certain Regard at last year's Cannes. How? Why, through the visual representing the horrors of genocide through clay models, of course. Setting out to find ‘the missing picture’, the one image that encapsulates the Khmer Rouge oppression and torture, and the hopelessness of its victims, Panh strives for that one picture throughout the harrowing 92 minutes.
The visuals are arresting. Almost cartoonish in the beginning with the models hastily superimposed onto new footage of Khmer Rouge's evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975, things gets serious quickly when the evacuees are moved to the country and the extent of the horror reveals itself. Although not as hard hitting as Jake and Dinos Chapman's Hell exhibition, the states of distress the models are depicted in can disturb, especially when Panh insists on close ups. Helped by the accompanying sombre music, this is haunting stuff.
Panh explores the systematic dehumanisation of the oppressor's regime. Removed of all possessions (only a spoon is allowed), and with all clothes dyed black, the stripping of identity occurs almost immediately upon entry to the camps. Reading and writing are banned. Political re-education sessions are a regular occurrence and perpetual sloganeering through loudspeakers as the prisoners toil in the fields aim to indoctrinate. It's effective as, later, a nine-year old denounces his mother who stole fruit. It's a chilling watch.
The flashbacks to a pre-Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh are a little overcooked with the city painted with near utopian brushes and Panh might disappoint some viewers with little to no information on the Khmer Rouge - this begins with the evacuation with the Cambodian capital and ends with the guards just slipping away four years later. No cause, no reason is given.
But this is no history lesson. This is just terrific.