ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin's film about the Cambodian genocide of the Khmer Rouge three decades ago, first premiered in Amsterdam two months ago at IDFA, where it made a big mark, finishing in the top 10 in the Audience Award and was named a finalist in the feature-length documentary competition.
Peter Howell, writing in the Toronto Star, suggests that we might hear the film called out on Saturday night in Park City as well:
"The first potential award winner I've seen here is ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, Cambodian filmmaker Thet Sambath's documentary inquiry into the Khmer Rouge genocide in his country in the 1970s.
Sambath's parents and brother were killed by the Khmer Rouge, who massacred upwards of two million people to further leader Pol Pot's communist ambitions. The filmmaker wants to know why it happened, and he spent 10 years tracking and talking to the people who did the killing."
Daniel Feinberg at HitFix continues:
"Sambath has been making these trips every weekend for a decade and it hasn't been a cheap proposition, costing him time with loved ones and often leaving his family strapped for money. His approach is methodical, luring the killers in with casual conversations and then pulling out the gruesome details from a position of comfort. With Nuon Chea, Sambath put in at least three years of cultivating a relationship before getting into issues of genocide... Nobody justifies anything they did, but it's still possible for these people to smile while recounting the things they did, which probably has more to do with the state of relaxation Sambath has established.
In that respect, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE is a "banality of evil" doc, rather than a "preponderance of evidence" doc. The directors hold back on the gory and gruesome Killing Fields imagery until almost the end, letting the first-hand recollections stand on their own. And when they finally show viewers the results of the actions of the interview subjects, the still photos are presented without voice-over commentary or emotion-pushing musical accompaniment."
Reviewing the film at IDFA, Variety's Leslie Felperin (behind the paywall, natch) called the film "watchable" and "melancholy" and says it "benefits from its smaller-scale focus on Sambath's personal journey and access to aged Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's second-in-command":
"Instead of just showing the interview footage, the pic often cuts away to Sambath in the editing room rewatching his material. The device emphasizes his centrality in the story, but also seems a little mannered."
Neil Miller at Film School Rejects says that "it is truth that is at the heart" of ENEMIES and notes the film's "beautiful imagery from the Cambodian countryside with the terrifying, deeply affecting subject matter":
"ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE is an interesting documentary that benefits greatly from such a deeply affecting subject. It is well done on a visual scale, but plods along a bit, losing focus for minutes at a time. However, that doesn’t stop it from bringing it all home with a heartbreaking, quiet sequence in the end that will pierce the emotional barriers of any viewer. If the goal of any documentary is to be truthful, to be insightful and to affect its audience, this one succeeds."
Deseret News' Aaron Falk profiles a visit by the filmmakers to a Cambodian Christian Church in Salt Lake City:
"Sambath spent more than a decade making the film ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, a world cinema documentary competition entry at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The watershed work features some of the only recorded accounts from the Khmer Rouge soldiers and officials who committed the atrocities.
"Before I make the documentary, I don't know much," Sambath said Sunday at the Cambodian Christian Reform Church in Salt Lake City. "Now I know the reason. It's good that we have this information.""
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