L'image manquante

"A picture can be stolen - a thought cannot" states the narrator of this documentary about the atrocities committed by Khmer Rouge in late 1970s Cambodia. While not actually narrated by him for reasons unknown, the script for the film is written by director Rithy Panh, a survivor of the atrocities, in an usual touch, Panh uses clay figures to depict incidents he experienced but for which no archive footage exists. Going back to that earlier quote, the film stands up as a testament of the human mind to recall personal horrors in great detail as one's thoughts can never be stolen. The clay figures are remarkably detailed and especially effective in a moment when Panh recalls drinking muddied water while watched by seemingly stunned local herds. Unique as the film may be though, it outstays its welcome long before it is over. The narration is extremely repetitive and as the film keeps focusing on emotions that its director personally felt, it crosses the border into maudlin territory while ultimately becoming less a document of the times and more the faded memories of a single man. The film is very deliberately paced too so one really needs to be in the right mood to appreciate it. The clay work is, however, never less than remarkable and as the film takes time to focus on Panh also creating all the models, sculpting then painting them, it is hard not to admire the care and consideration put into them. This was clearly a very personal film for Panh and the fact that the film makes one want to read up more about the Khmer Rouge horrors certainly says something.

"The Missing Picture" is a very unusual documentary and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It's so unusual because filmmaker Rithy Panh tells the story both with archival footage AND little figurines that he created for the film! Perhaps this was a way to make the horror of the Khmer Rouge easier for the audience to watch, as an hour and a half of footage of atrocities would be just about unwatchable considering how brutal this regime was. And, since you don't see live actors in the film-- just narration and film clips, seeing it in its original French language or the optional English language form is a roughly identical experience, or at least I assume so.

While I enjoyed how unique this film was and figure its uniqueness probably led to its Oscar nomination, I must confess that the narration made an exciting story very, very slow and a bit tedious. Perhaps the French language version is better, I don't know. All I know is that a film like "The Killing Fields" or a regular documentary about the subject is something I could have enjoyed or at least stuck with better.

I love me some slow, moody, atmospheric and introspective films. Yet I found this to be really, really slow at times. The premise of using clay figurines is a great one, and at times it really added to the film's power by not forcing images and allowing us to use our imagination, but it was used a lot and together with sort of ho-hum archival footage, and the dreamy narration, I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the film to be really slow to watch at times. It just got a bit repetitive and the subject matter wasn't presented in a more fascinating way. Still, I found some of it effective and the film is pretty original in that way so I have to give it props where they are due.

Several reviewers have commented on the basic themes of Rithy Panh's documentary; what is perhaps more interesting is the way in which the title operates on two levels. First, Panh's film aims to fill in "the missing picture" of life in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime. For most of the time, the only visual material available on this regime was propaganda films depicting an idealized world of workers happily contributing to the new country Kampuchea's collective sense of well- being. Through a mixture of clay figures and archive footage, Panh proves the opposite; most citizens had to get used to a combination of perpetual hunger and enforced labor. The clay figures are an important element of this film, suggesting that human beings can be rendered malleable in any way their makers/ captors choose. At another level, the film tries to recreate the "missing picture" of Panh's past; at the age of fifty, he looks back at his childhood in the pre-Pol Pot era, a world of color and variety that was ruthlessly swept away, as the people were forced to wear black and work inhumanly long hours in the rice- fields. The experience left an indelible mark on Panh's character, as he lost most of his family due to starvation, without being able to do a thing about it. Even now he feels guilty for his inaction. Living under a tyrannous regime was bad enough, but what was much worse for Panh was the way in which that regime rendered him powerless, as well as depriving his life of the possibilities - both personal as well as professional - that could have been available in the pre-Pol Pot era. The "missing picture" cannot be recreated, however hard he tries. The film ends on a somber note, as Panh reminds us how much the souls of the millions who died during the Pol Pot regime still haunt those who survived. While efforts have been made to erase the past (a lake has been built over one of the mass graves), he still feels somehow united with the dead rather than the living - an indication, perhaps, of the emotional and physical consequences of tyranny. While THE MISSING PICTURE offers a country-specific interpretation of the past, its message should be heeded by everyone about the consequences of living under an absolutist government.

"It's not a picture of loved ones i seek, i want to touch them, their voices are missing, so i wont tell. I want to leave it all, leave my language, my country in vain and my childhood returns. Now it's the boy who seeks me out, i see him, he wants to speak to me but words are hard to find." -Randal Douc

I think i first heard of The Missing Picture more than a year ago when it premiered at Cannes and got out of there with the Un Certain Regard Award. The early buzz was good but the film did not stay with me and it was quickly forgotten until it's name came as a surprise in Academy Award Nominations that gave the film a nomination at the Best Foreign Picture. Then i check out the film again and realized that it had gotten great reviews overall and the film entered my watchlist but only seven months after that event was able actually able to see it. I was now still curious but not exactly excited to see it.

The Missing Picture is Directed by Rithy Panh, "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 and insignificant? So I created it. What I give you today is neither the picture nor the search for a unique image, but the picture of a quest: the quest that cinema allows."

As said i was interested but not exactly excited to finally see this, i felt like it was more of an obligation since it had received great praise and even an Academy Award Nomination. Well i got to say that i'm a foll because i was completely overwhelmed by this film, it's a shame that it have only seen it now and a shame that most people have not yet seen and are likely to never see this wonderful little movie.

It's funny because i had heard from the film for so long but i went in knowing absolutely nothing, i had no idea what it was about, i had heard that it was an unusual kind of documentary, but the film was not nominated for that category so i was a bit confused. The film is indeed a documentary that follows the life experience of a man who lived under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. So after gaining independence and fighting the Vietnam War and a Civil War the Cambodian people went through a lot more they went through the Communist Regime, where the slogan are everyone is equal and those who complaint are enemies, where ignorance and hunger are kings. The Cambodian holocaust went through four years of enslavement and working fields that killed over 2.500.000. people. You probably didn't know that right? Me neither.

The film certainly as a moving, touchy subject but only having an important subject doesn't make a good documentary, it's direction sure is important and here the direction is certainly unorthodox and the results are nothing short of outstanding. Documentary does feature live action images of the working fields but most of the film's narrative and storytelling is done through clay figures. Yes clay figures are used to dramatize the horrifying images that the director as a child saw and experienced. The results, are nothing of amazing, this could have gone real goofy, or maybe it would have been impossible to us audience to make a connection with the story if it's being told by clay figures but non of that is true. Weirdly or not we are able to connect and relate to the clay figures and the film is able to be emotionally wrecking and have an enormous deal of power even if through those little pieces.

Never in a million years would i have thought that those little figures would have moved me in the way they did, they are quite disturbing too, the faces of the figures, very expressive at times it was like the fear, the hunger it became palpable, it's amazing. This is also due to the documentaries fantastic direction that reminded me of Hiroshima Mon Amour, it's poetic, breathtaking.

The Missing Picture is an amazingly underseen picture, last years best documentary(yes better than The Act of Killing) and by the way why was this not nominated for that category. Well continuing...if you have the chance see it and you won't be disappointed, it's emotionally shattering, it's unusual, innovative, poignant and overall an extremely well made documentary that is among last years best.

Rating: A-