S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

The Khmer Roug massacres were vicious, to say the least. This documentary informs the audience of this and impresses upon them the torture that only few survived. Without having any knowledge of the history that led up to these events, I left the theater in the same state. I understood that a massacre had occurred, but the extent was not identified in any terms more than abstract death. The narration was slow and rather boring. I practically fell asleep three times during the showing because of the lack of information presented to me and the mediocre filming.

The film also lacked integration of background information regarding the history of the country and expected the viewer to have that knowledge before entering the theater. It was a compilation of two sides coming together to share their stories of pain. Truly, it was a horrible incident, but the continuing narration by the soldiers through every move they made when picking up and delivering a prisoner was rather unnecessary and added about twenty minutes of film that was not needed.

The two hours and eight dollars I spent on this film would have been better spent on a pony ride. I recommend picking up a book before going to this movie, that is if you choose to do so. Beware that going in without being informed about the Khmer Roug massacre will result in you leaving with the same amount of knowledge with the addition of numerous tragic stories to amplify your interest, but it delivers nothing of substance.

I saw this film on the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival. What starts out as an interesting and powerful documentary about the Khymer Rouge and the horrible events that unfolded in Cambodia quickly turns into a documentary of testimonials. The testimonials are initially powerful and moving, as both former prisoners and guards are able to confront each other about the events in the past. However, after the first few subjects give their stories, there is a sense of repetitiveness that echoes more and more with each following testimonial. It probably would have helped if there were some more historical information provided about Cambodia and how the Khymer Rouge came about. Overall, S21 covers an interesting subject, but it did not flow very well.

For me, there are other films that deal with the full atrocities of the Khmer Rouge I would have watched one of them. Instead I wished to view the first hand accounts of guards and survivors, and this is what the film gave me.

It doesn't make this a good or bad film on this basis alone, I'm simply explaining on the criteria which I'm judging it.

Bringing together 2 of the 3 surviving prisoners, a few guards, and a doctor from the death factory of S21 to show one of several face to face encounters they have shared, we get the chance to have a front row seat to what they experienced. There were several mentions of these gatherings, plural, that it is clear this is not something the filmmaker took upon himself for the sake of the audience.

We hear of the punishments, the torture, and most upsetting to me the fact the they were coerced and beaten, sometimes treated medically so they would survive the torture until they would give a confession. Yet all admit the confessions were for the simple reason the prisoners were executed. This sent shivers down my spine.

The beginning scene to me was like a scene in a modern motion picture: it frames how we will view the rest of the footage. It succeeded very well on this extent.

I marked this film slightly lower than perfect for two reasons. The first is that there was no outside footage, except for a Kampuchea Loyalty song. Since this was the only outside influence I recall, it threw me out of the context when it played. Second a few scenes would have been handled better in a longer, slightly shorter single scene. The two separate daytime examples one guard gave of his behavior to called prisoners would have really benefited from this treatment. It also would have allowed the single nighttime example this guard gave of his treatments to these walking-dead men and women an added punch.

Overall, still an excellent film, as was Shoah which took the same technique. Don't expect a primer on the Khmer Roige, there are plenty of good ones around.

In this emotional and gripping movie Rithy Panh confronts former killers and the few survivors (among the thousands of inmates) of the slaughtering in the horrible S-21 prison in Phnom Penh during the Red Khmer regime in Kampuchea. The guards show the place were people were clubbed to death, not shot. The sound of gun shots would have created panic among the group of prisoners waiting to be killed. The inmates confess blatantly that under untenable torture they told their interrogators everything those wanted to hear and denounced as traitors even the most innocent of their compatriots. The movie creates a nearly unbearable emotional climate by showing the extreme excesses of a Marxist ideology going mad, killing even intentionally children and babies. A one party State was installed where the top forced a terror regime on the entire population.

This movie is a must see for all those interested in the history and the nature of mankind.

I got to see this film at a special screening at the Alliance France in Manila, the French embassy's cultural center. Many of the small audience in the screening room (the copy screened was a DVD) did not bother to finish the film.

For myself, I found the film a flawed but powerful experience. One major flaw is, as other reviewers have pointed out, its cold opening. In other words, it assumes you already know what S-21 is and what the Khmer Rouge are. Without this valuable background information, which the documentary does not provide, the viewers may be lost at first.

It is also kind of dry, since the movie takes place only within the walls of S-21, involving only the few survivors of the prison and some of their former jailers. Essentially they spent the entire film talking. There is no attempt on the part of the director to make it more cinematic.

However, the patient viewer will soon find him or herself immersed in the horrors of the Khmer Rouge as detail after detail of the atrocities committed in the prison emerge. The handful of survivors go through mementos of the prison, including logbooks detailing the tortures committed against inmates, along with some of those who worked in the prison, including a guard and a doctor. The question the survivors constantly ask their former jailers is: How? How could you do these things? And they have no answers.

The most chilling scenes in the film involve a former prison guard recreating in an empty cell the routine he took with the prisoners, bringing them food, water or a container to pee in, threatening them with a beating if they don't go to sleep or cry too loudly. Its throughly disturbing to see, even if there are no actual prisoners there.

S-21 is not for everybody. But if you're already familiar with the Khmer Roune and this part of Cambodian history, the documentary may be worth watching to deepen your understanding of this dark period of history.