Category Archives: Crime fiction and film from Cambodia

The Red Sense

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

The Red Sense is a terrific examination of the ongoing impact on both the victims and perpetrators of the genocide carried out in Cambodia during the short but bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that it was made not in Cambodia, but in Melbourne, Australia.

Another is the genre in which director and co-writer Tim Pek chose to examine the sensitive issues concerned, a classic Asian ghost story fused with elements of a thriller.

The story is told through the lens of a young Khmer woman, Melear, who discovers the Khmer Rouge commander responsible for the death of her father is alive and living in Melbourne.

Melear is obsessed by her father’s death, spending her days searching for information about his fate and her nights dreaming about him. The opening scene is her recurring nightmare, set in the northwest of Cambodia in 1975. Two men, one of them Melear’s father, kneel in front of a freshly dug grave before being bludgeoned to death by Khmer Rouge soldiers commanded by a tall, bearded man.

In another house in Melbourne, the Khmer Rouge commander responsible for the death of Melear’s father sits listlessly on a sofa. It is the Pchum Ben festival, a time when the Khmer believe that the spirits of the dead walk the earth and the living ease their suffering by offering them food to eat.… Read more

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Matt Dillon’s City of Ghosts: film as a time machine

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

GhostRe-watching City of Ghosts, Matt Dillon’s 2002 crime movie set in Cambodia, has got me thinking a lot about film as a personal time machine.

It’s not a great film, but having worked on and off as a journalist in Phnom Penh in the nineties and again in 2008, for me it’s a vivid depiction of a Cambodia that is quickly changing in the face of rapid, if very uneven, economic development.

Jimmy (Dillon) is a long con artist who begins to grow a conscience after the fake insurance company he’s been fronting forfeits on claims to the survivors of a hurricane. In order to get his share of the proceeds from the scam and escape the clutches of the FBI, Jimmy travels from New York to Thailand where Marvin (James Caan), his mentor and the brains behind their operation has fled.

Landing in Bangkok, Jimmy meets up with another of Marvin’s associates, Casper (Stellan Skarsgard), who informs him Marvin has gone to Cambodia to escape his former partners in the Russian mob who unbeknown to Jimmy put up the seed money for their insurance scam.

Jimmy decides to follow him, arranging to meet up with Casper in Phnom Penh at a hotel called the Belleville. Most frequent travellers to Asia will have stayed in at least one place like the Belleville, a magnet for dead-beat expats, burn-outs and tourists on expired visas, who hang around the bar providing cryptic advice and Vietnam flashbacks to whoever will pay attention and buy them drinks.… Read more

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