Movie No. 46 (2014): THE MISSING PICTURE
The Missing Picture (2013)
Director: Rithy Panh
The Missing Picture is a powerful documentary that effectively blends the narrator's own memoirs with his nation's (Cambodia's) turbulent history in a manner so poetic and, sometimes, devastating. The narrator shares how he's been searching for the missing picture(s) that will prove mass murder during Khmer Rouge's rule in Phnom Penh between 1975 and 1979. He confesses he fails to find the picture. So he constructs it using clay figures to create a diorama and tableau of the "missing" historical events. The process results in a powerful cinema.
Director: Rithy Panh
A documentary
The Missing Picture is a powerful documentary that effectively blends the narrator's own memoirs with his nation's (Cambodia's) turbulent history in a manner so poetic and, sometimes, devastating. The narrator shares how he's been searching for the missing picture(s) that will prove mass murder during Khmer Rouge's rule in Phnom Penh between 1975 and 1979. He confesses he fails to find the picture. So he constructs it using clay figures to create a diorama and tableau of the "missing" historical events. The process results in a powerful cinema.
The film was well-received in the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, winning Grand Prize in the Un Certain Regard category. Early this year, it got nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards, which was first for Cambodia.
Rating: 4.0/4.0
Date seen: July 13, 2014
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