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S21: THE KHMER
ROUGE KILLING MACHINE |
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Director:
Rithy Panh
Screenplay: Rithy Panh
Running time: 101 minutes
Year of production: France - 2003
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm (color)
Language: Khmer
Distributor: First Run Features
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“Tell
the truth, then have a ceremony,” says one survivor
of the events remembered in “S21 The Khmer Rouge
Killing Machine.” As harrowing as the title sounds,
Rithy Pahn’s documentary eschews rhetorical devices
to confront the Cambodian holocaust with a cold, clear
eye. “S21 offers no false catharsis.” Nathan
Lee | The New York Sun |
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The 1975 ascension
to power of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia marked the beginning
of a horrific period of oppression. Over 1.5 million people
died – many of whom were executed. In this new documentary,
Rithy Panh attempts to understand how the Khmer Rouge implemented
its policy of elimination. It took three years for Rithy Panh
to assemble victims of the regime and their torturers at S21,
the main detention center of the Khmer Rouge. The S21 personnel
and the victims now face each other in an attempt to explain
and understand. The victims ask questions, and the torturers
remember. The only information that remains from this dark
period is the thousands of photographs, piles of conviction
files, detainees’ logs, daily reports, medical files,
torture manuals... Some of the most stunning and chilling
moments in the film are when the torturers, unemotional and
robotic, re-stage their daily chores: surveillance, beatings,
tortures, executions, forced confessions and denunciations.
Through long moments of silence and by focusing the camera
on facial expressions, Rithy Pahn does a remarkable job of
conveying the proportion of this tragedy.
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| PHOTO First
Run Features |
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