This is a documentary about one person's experiences under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975-1979 when the country was called Kampuchea. The trauma of the horrors visited upon survivors of this period do not make for an easy telling. The film maker opted for an unusual and novel approach; recreating the story and events using miniature figurines that he hand carved. Lots and lots of figurines with hand made sets to accompany them. The images reminded me at times of the war/hell scenes for which the Chapman brothers are famous. It is a most effective medium for drawing a person into an arena of horror.
Anyone with knowledge of trauma survivors knows that retelling a traumatic story is not always a good course for the survivor. Using the figurines to depict the worst moments witnessed by the film maker facilitates the story in a way that is more separate. The separateness allows the survivor to engage without traumatising themselves further. Bravo to the film maker for finding the means by which to bear witness. This is one of those films where the form is the most significant feature of the film.
Accompanying the stunning visuals, which includes archive footage and photographs also, is a narrator whose speech is spare and poetic. I stopped my DVD and wrote out many of the lines; so simply and beautifully did they express a thought or feeling. One of the most important underpins some of the motivation for making the film:
"To hang on you must hide within yourself a strength, a memory, an idea that no one can take from you. For if a picture can be stolen, a thought cannot."
Later he says: "There are many things that man should not see or know. Should he see them, he'd be better off dying. But should any of us see or know them then he must live to tell of them."
In a situation where everything is taken from you and you are left with but two things - an outfit of black clothing and a spoon for eating meagre amounts of food - to be able to retain something of one's self, which includes people known, places visited, experiences, memories of a physical home and possessions, becomes essential to survival with mind intact. Furthermore if one survives an atrocity then the survivors have a duty, unsought but one nonetheless, to bear witness so that the atrocity might be known, acknowledged and learnt from. The film maker did both.
At age 13 the film maker and his family became prisoners of the Khmer Rouge when they invaded the capital city. During their years of hypocritical rule, as seems to be the case for every dictatorship, the film maker lost his dad, who chose to die, his mother, his siblings and his large extended family. He was one of those chosen to bury the dead in mass graves and knows not how he endured such a life but his retelling is piquant to say the least. The Khmer Rouge regime reminded me of the Nazi concentration camps. It reminds me that the Holocaust was not a defining moment in human history for such evil has happened before and since.
The title, the missing picture, is the main theme. It is a trope for the film maker's means of bearing witness. The archive footage is mostly propaganda. It does not show the effects of the society being promoted. The film maker had no photographs of his father withered from his fatal hunger strike. He has no photos of the minuscule food portions given to the adults and children whose lives consisted of endless hard labour. He has no photographs for the mud he drank in lieu of water. So he is recreating these photographs with his figurines and puppet sets. He is showing us the photographs in the only way he can; it matters that we see what he saw and heard and felt.
One would not expect such a film to be beautiful but this is; from the images, the form, the narration, the film maker's weary and collected wisdom. I was startled by the descriptions, photographs and songs from Cambodia pre-Khmer Rouge, or perhaps I should say from Phnom Penh - its capital, because it was so westernised. It was shocking to see what the leaders of the Khmer Rouge did to the city and its people. The film maker concludes: "This missing picture I now hand over to you so that it never ceases to seek us out." Humans seem destined to visit atrocities upon one another. If we cannot avoid such a fate then at least we can attend to the witnesses of this aspect of human life.
Anyone with knowledge of trauma survivors knows that retelling a traumatic story is not always a good course for the survivor. Using the figurines to depict the worst moments witnessed by the film maker facilitates the story in a way that is more separate. The separateness allows the survivor to engage without traumatising themselves further. Bravo to the film maker for finding the means by which to bear witness. This is one of those films where the form is the most significant feature of the film.
Accompanying the stunning visuals, which includes archive footage and photographs also, is a narrator whose speech is spare and poetic. I stopped my DVD and wrote out many of the lines; so simply and beautifully did they express a thought or feeling. One of the most important underpins some of the motivation for making the film:
"To hang on you must hide within yourself a strength, a memory, an idea that no one can take from you. For if a picture can be stolen, a thought cannot."
Later he says: "There are many things that man should not see or know. Should he see them, he'd be better off dying. But should any of us see or know them then he must live to tell of them."
In a situation where everything is taken from you and you are left with but two things - an outfit of black clothing and a spoon for eating meagre amounts of food - to be able to retain something of one's self, which includes people known, places visited, experiences, memories of a physical home and possessions, becomes essential to survival with mind intact. Furthermore if one survives an atrocity then the survivors have a duty, unsought but one nonetheless, to bear witness so that the atrocity might be known, acknowledged and learnt from. The film maker did both.
At age 13 the film maker and his family became prisoners of the Khmer Rouge when they invaded the capital city. During their years of hypocritical rule, as seems to be the case for every dictatorship, the film maker lost his dad, who chose to die, his mother, his siblings and his large extended family. He was one of those chosen to bury the dead in mass graves and knows not how he endured such a life but his retelling is piquant to say the least. The Khmer Rouge regime reminded me of the Nazi concentration camps. It reminds me that the Holocaust was not a defining moment in human history for such evil has happened before and since.
The title, the missing picture, is the main theme. It is a trope for the film maker's means of bearing witness. The archive footage is mostly propaganda. It does not show the effects of the society being promoted. The film maker had no photographs of his father withered from his fatal hunger strike. He has no photos of the minuscule food portions given to the adults and children whose lives consisted of endless hard labour. He has no photographs for the mud he drank in lieu of water. So he is recreating these photographs with his figurines and puppet sets. He is showing us the photographs in the only way he can; it matters that we see what he saw and heard and felt.
One would not expect such a film to be beautiful but this is; from the images, the form, the narration, the film maker's weary and collected wisdom. I was startled by the descriptions, photographs and songs from Cambodia pre-Khmer Rouge, or perhaps I should say from Phnom Penh - its capital, because it was so westernised. It was shocking to see what the leaders of the Khmer Rouge did to the city and its people. The film maker concludes: "This missing picture I now hand over to you so that it never ceases to seek us out." Humans seem destined to visit atrocities upon one another. If we cannot avoid such a fate then at least we can attend to the witnesses of this aspect of human life.