The Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh, who tragically lost his entire family during the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s, has dedicated much of his career to exploring the dark history of his country through his films. His 2013 documentary, “The Missing Picture“, which combines archival footage and clay figurines, was even nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. In “Meeting With Pol Pot“, he offers a dramatized account of a 1978 meeting between three foreign journalists and Cambodia’s leaders, which took place after the Khmer Rouge took power and isolated the country by establishing brutal agricultural work camps. However, Rithy’s purpose extends beyond merely teaching history. This film captures something more immediate, something happening in the present tense.
Among the three guests present, one is Alain Cariou (Grégoire Colin), a socialist scholar with ties to Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, from their student activist days in Paris. Intrigued by the concept of the recently renamed “Democratic Kampuchea”, Cariou seeks to debunk what he perceives as biased, anti-communist news in Western media, which has been reporting on refugee accounts about prisons, torture, mass killings, famine, and sickness. (It is estimated that the Cambodian genocide would eventually take around 2 million lives.) He listens attentively as his companions praise their efforts to mold “a new person”, and he readily accepts their optimistic portrayals of life under Pol Pot’s version of communism, branded as Year Zero: a society where everyone appears content, having relinquished material possessions, personal freedom, individuality, education, and even eyeglasses.
Although it’s clear that the Khmer Rouge’s experiment is a tragic and bloody failure, one can sense Cariou’s heartfelt aspiration for his ideals to thrive in reality, coupled with a wistful reminiscence stemming from the passionate protests of the 1950s and 60s. The Khmer Rouge may talk about human dignity, but their actions do not reflect it, even in this sanitized environment. We can feel Cariou’s growing unease as he observes both what is happening and what isn’t, and Colin, who was a powerful physical presence in Claire Denis’s films ‘Nenette et Boni’ (1996) and ‘Beau Travail’ (1999), has an uncanny ability to express subtle emotional transitions through his body. It appears that devotion, illusion, and disenchantment all reside on the same spectrum. Rithy, who has made several films about Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge period, seems to focus here on the crucible of disillusionment that everyone experiences when reality no longer aligns with our expectations.
The rest of this mixed French team doesn’t seem overly optimistic. Journalist Lise Delbo (Irène Jacob), who reported from Cambodia during the Vietnam War, maintains a balanced perspective but is curious about the fate of her early interpreter, who was sent to rural areas and has since gone silent. The third member, Paul Thomas (Cyril Gueï), is a seasoned French African photojournalist with extensive war zone coverage under his belt; he’s the one who reacts defensively when Khmer Rouge officials try to manipulate the story and restrict unapproved photographic subjects.
He’s also the one who uncovers the deception behind the seemingly plentiful rice bags, filled instead with dirt. A significant portion of their time is spent near Kompong Chnnang Airport’s tarmac, a runway started by the Khmer Rouge in 1976 but never completed; for years after its construction, this area was associated with death due to the thousands of workers who were enslaved, starved, and murdered during its creation. Their remains occasionally surfaced during the rainy seasons, protruding from the ground.
In his film, Rithy employs clay figures, much like those used in The Missing Picture, and incorporates some archival images to portray the more disturbing sequences. These figures are not animated or intended as replacements for reality; instead, they serve as symbolic reminders. The crudely molded faces and rough forms of these figures create a barrier, prompting us to ponder and speculate, to envision both the atrocities they represent and the individuals they may have been. This approach is reminiscent of the blurry, unclear black-and-white photos depicting tortured and murdered prisoners, as well as the shaky footage of labor camps. The Khmer Rouge regime had a brief tenure but left a deep scar on Cambodia; this genocide is primarily known to us through the harrowing accounts of its survivors and a collection of documentary images. (Similar to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ordered thorough documentation of the Nazi death camps at the end of WWII and encouraged American soldiers to bear witness to the horrors, knowing that there would be those in the future who would question the authenticity of stories about the Holocaust.))
By the time we encounter him, we might feel like we’ve already encountered him before, through the gruesome actions of his followers, in the pervasive paranoia and mistrust that permeates every scene in the film.
Encounter with Pol Pot” – A Fictional Work Based on Elizabeth Becker’s 1986 Book, “When the War Ended”
This film is an imaginative rendition inspired by American journalist Elizabeth Becker’s work. The three main characters in the movie are loosely based on Becker and two other individuals who traveled to Cambodia in 1978. However, it’s important to note that none of these real figures were French. Richard Dudman was a seasoned American journalist, while Edward Caldwell was a Scottish intellectual known for his socialist views and support of the Khmer Rouge’s ideology.
The filmmaker, Rithy, has creatively altered the narrative, likely to give this story a broader resonance, to delve into the uneasy psychological landscape where belief systems clash and start to crumble. Not all characters in this exploration emerge unscathed.
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2025-06-13 16:54