Following The Missing Picture (Oscar nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film), Rithy Panh continues his personal and spiritual exploration of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge era. His earlier films, S21 and Duch, analyzed the mechanisms of the crime. Graves Without a Name searches for a path to peace.
When a thirteen-year-old child, who lost the greater part of his family under the Khmer Rouge, embarks on a search for their graves, what does he find? And above all, what is he looking for? Spectral trees? Villages defaced beyond recognition? Witnesses who are reluctant to speak? The ethereal touch of a brother or sister's body as the night approaches?
Graves Without a Name is a cinematic masterpiece by a filmmaker who reaches well beyond the story of his country to that which is universal.
|
