The Khmer Rouge killed nearly two million people in the second half of the 1970s in Cambodia. The mother and brother of Thet Sambath were amongst them. His mother was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge officer and died during childbirth. The young journalist started his interviews with the common executioners and with the main ideologue of the murderous political regime, Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, at the end of the nineties. The butchers of the Killing Fields would rather forget, but they cannot resist the soft-spoken journalist’s polite yet relentless questioning. While evoking their acts, the camera observes the minute movements of their faces: these worn-out, hard-skinned faces reveal a lot, but they cannot answer the main question: why? The only inscrutable face, the one from whom a real answer could be expected, is the main ideologue of Pol Pot, Noun Chea, who is in his eighties. This series of discussions is the film’s journalistic coup and also the source of its most powerful and tense moments. Will we get an answer to the tormenting question? Can a public confession or an honest apology give solace?
2009 | Thet Sambath/United Kingdom | 94 min | Rob Lemkin | www

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