Film

S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine is a 2003 documentary by Rithy Panh that brings survivors and former staff back to the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh.[1] Its French title is S21, la machine de mort khmère rouge.[2]

Background

Under Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), towns were emptied, money was abolished, and people were imprisoned and executed for invented crimes against the state.[3] Screen puts the death toll of those four years at almost two million people; IDFA gives about two million.[3][1] S-21 was the code name of Tuol Sleng prison, the regime's main security bureau in central Phnom Penh. It was set up in a compound of secondary schools and used to interrogate, torture and execute political prisoners.[2][3] Most of the prisoners were ordinary Cambodians forced to confess to imagined treason and conspiracy.[2] Some 17,000 were tortured and killed there.[2][3] The Museum of Modern Art counts 12 adults who were spared, Screen names Vann Nath as one of only three men who survived, and IDFA refers to seven survivors.[2][3][1] The prison site houses the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.[4]

Synopsis

Rithy Panh, himself a survivor of the Khmer Rouge, brought two former prisoners, the painter Vann Nath and Chum Mey, back to the prison.[5][1] Vann Nath had been kept alive at S-21 because he could paint.[6][5] There they meet their former captors: guards, interrogators, a doctor and a photographer. Many of them were barely teenagers during the Khmer Rouge years, and some were as young as 12.[2]

The former guards walk through the empty rooms and reenact how they treated the prisoners and how the prison ran from day to day.[1][7] They read aloud the instructions they once followed and look over the prison's records, including interrogation rosters, confessions and photographs, to refresh their memories.[8] The film includes Vann Nath's paintings of the prisoners.[8] Vann Nath presses the men to explain what they did. The guards say they were indoctrinated as boys and were only following orders.[1] Two of the men, Him Houy and Prak Khan, claim responsibility in front of the survivors.[5] The film also shows a former executioner, twenty years later, planting rice and sitting with his family.[8]

Production and credits

The film was written and directed by Rithy Panh, who shot it with Prum Mesa.[1][5] Cati Couteau produced it for the Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA), with Arte France as co-producer.[1][3] Nitrate Online also lists Aline Sasson and Liane Willemont as producers.[5] Isabelle Roudy and Marie-Christine Rougerie edited the film, and Marc Marder composed the music.[1] The film is in Khmer and Vietnamese.[2]

Release and reception

The film premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Prix François Chalais.[4][7] It screened at the New York Film Festival.[5] First Run Features released it in the United States,[5] and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's library catalog lists a First Run/Icarus Films edition.[9] The running time is 101 minutes; The American Historical Review lists the Icarus Films release as a 2002 film of 105 minutes.[1][8]

It won Best European Documentary at the 2003 European Film Awards.[7][10] It also received the Humanitarian Award at the 2004 Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Jury Special Prize at the 2003 Copenhagen International Film Festival.[7] At the 2003 Leipzig festival it won the Golden Dove for Best Long Documentary and the FIPRESCI Prize.[7][4]

In The American Historical Review, Leona Toker wrote that the film is devoted to two issues: the mechanics of the killing and the way the past is being processed today.[8] The Museum of Modern Art names it as an inspiration for Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing and Barbet Schroeder's The Venerable W.[2]

References 10
  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 IDFA Archive, S21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 The Museum of Modern Art, S21, la machine de mort khmère rouge (S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine). 2003. Directed by Rithy Panh (October 15, 2022)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Screen, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (June 11, 2003)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 KINEMA, University of Waterloo, Ron Holloway, Leipzig 2003 (2004)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Nitrate Online, Elias Savada, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (June 11, 2004)
  6. ↑ International Documentary Association, Doc U: Master Class with Director Rithy Panh (2014)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 WATCH DOCS Human Rights in Film IFF, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2020)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 The American Historical Review, S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, reviewed by Leona Toker (December 1, 2005)
  9. ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, library catalog, S21: the Khmer Rouge killing machine (record modified June 21, 2024)
  10. ↑ IMDb, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)
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This page was last edited on 4 November 2026, at 05:49.