The Missing Picture (2013)

Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.

Director:

Rithy Panh

Writers:

Rithy Panh, Christophe Bataille (commentary)

Stars:

Randal Douc, Jean-Baptiste Phou

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 13 wins & 15 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Randal Douc	...	Narrator (voice)
Jean-Baptiste Phou	...	Narrator (voice)

Storyline

Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.

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Plot Keywords:

1970s | democratic kampuchea | unitary state | marxism leninism | communism | 

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Taglines:

Winner of Un Certain Regard at Cannes

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Cambodia to the Oscars 2014 best foreign language film category.

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Quotes

[from trailer]
Narrator: For many years, I have been looking for the missing picture: a photograph taken between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled over Cambodia... On its own, of course, an image cannot prove mass murder, but it gives us cause for thought, prompts us to meditate, to record History. I searched for it vainly in the archives, in old papers, in the country villages of Cambodia. Today I know: this image must be missing. I was not really looking for it; would it not be obscene ...

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Connections

Featured in The Oscars (2014)

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Soundtracks

Neng hey pros pros
by Sakhom Hay

User Reviews

Unique portrayal of a human holocaust

History, it is said, is written by the victors. But sometimes, it is the victims - or more accurately, the survivors - who get to do the writing. That is the case with Rithy Panh, a Cambodian who survived the horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Panh was a mere child when he suffered the loss of his parents and siblings in the various grueling work camps to which they had been consigned. As an adult, Panh went on to become a documentary filmmaker dedicated to telling his story to the world. It was a purge aimed mainly at the intelligentsia of Cambodian society - the well-off and educated - who posed the greatest threat to the regime's vision of a collectivist agrarian utopia.

Where, Panh asks, are all the pictures of children starving, of people being worked into the grave that more accurately portray the reality of this 20th Century holocaust? Somehow, those were not recorded and preserved for posterity. Instead, we get a series of grainy propaganda images - of workers seemingly happy in their toil, of leaders of the revolution inspiring the masses with their promises of a Communist paradise - that were officially sanctioned by the government. So Panh has taken it upon himself to provide the "missing" pictures the Pol Pot regime failed to provide to the world.

The Oscar-nominated documentary "The Missing Picture" is a stark, haunting illustration of what life was like under Pol Pot's brutal dictatorship. The director alternates between grainy, mostly black-and- white footage taken at the time and diorama-style re-creations using strategically arranged and intricately carved clay figurines. These frozen, expressionless figures, with their searching, unblinking eyes, lift the suffering that the actual people endured to a near-surreal level, while the wistful, soft-spoken narration by Jean-Baptiste Phou echoes the human tragedy at the core. Indeed, the approach Panh has taken manages to personalize a holocaust that, given its enormous breadth and scope - an estimated one to three million people died under the regime - would otherwise be incomprehensible to the human mind. "The Missing Picture," by "going small," paradoxically helps us to see the tragedy writ large.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site [Japan]

Country:

Cambodia France

Language:

French

Release Date:

19 March 2014 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Missing Picture

Filming Locations:

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$10,148, 23 March 2014

Gross USA:

$52,164

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$78,097

Company Credits

Production Co:

Catherine Dussart Productions (CDP), ARTE, Bophana Production

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Color:

Color Black and White (archive footage) Color (archive footage)

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1 / (high definition)