{"id":2019,"date":"2011-08-11T09:41:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T13:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/?p=2019"},"modified":"2011-08-11T09:41:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T13:41:20","slug":"rithy-panh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/2011\/08\/11\/rithy-panh\/","title":{"rendered":"Rithy Panh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
From Rithy Pahn's film Le Papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I recently had the opportunity to hear the French-educated Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh<\/a> speak at the Cinemath\u00e8que Qu\u00e9becoise<\/a>.<\/strong> The occasion was a retrospective<\/a> of his very impressive work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I first saw one of his films in 2000, when we both had films in competition at the Cin\u00e9ma du R\u00e9el <\/a>festival at Beaubourg in Paris. His film The Land of Wandering Souls<\/em><\/a>, about the laying of optical cables through Cambodia, featured the encounter beteen modern globalized technology and medieval working conditions. It very deservedly took home the main award.<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike his own parents who died of starvation in a camp, Panh is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide<\/a> of the early \u201870\u2019s. His entire oeuvre is marked by varying degrees of sadness and despair about the human condition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Rithy<\/a><\/p>\n

The same goes for his own discourse: he speaks of \u2018un travail de m\u00e9moire\u2019 \u2013 not a duty to remember, but a choice \u2013 one could choose to forget.<\/strong> It\u2019s just work to be done, if you choose to do it. He speaks as if there was nowhere to hide and no use pretending. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The filmmaker also needs to face up to his dilemmas: there is an obvious risk of voyeurism, of taking advantage of people. <\/strong>Like every other activity, it\u2019s fragile and perilous.<\/p>\n

This time I was particularly struck by Panh\u2019s 2007 film Le Papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise<\/em><\/a>, about a group of young female prostitutes who share a house in Phnom Penh. The film is unbelievably sad, as the young women grapple with illness, unwanted pregnancies, violence and poverty.<\/p>\n

The aesthetics of the film are striking: it\u2019s all shot \u2018verite\u2019 in the sense that Panh just observes and captures moments of their life. But at the same time every image is carefully crafted, with just the right angle and framing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

How did he achieve this<\/em>? I wondered. He explained that it was all a matter of patience. Being there for many months, shooting the same kinds of scenes many times over, and carefully selecting just the right shots \u2013 out of 300 hours of rushes – in the editing.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Tobi Elliott<\/a> for her help with this blog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had the opportunity to hear the French-educated Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh speak at the Cinemath\u00e8que Qu\u00e9becoise. The occasion was a retrospective of his very impressive work. I first saw one of his films in 2000, when we both had films in competition at the Cin\u00e9ma du R\u00e9el festival at Beaubourg in Paris. His … Continue reading Rithy Panh<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,532,533],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-film-review","category-filmmaker-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}