Review of Enemies of the People (2009) by Mike M — 24 Sep 2010
What we watch is a gradual process of trust-gaining: Sambath sits down with these men, eats with them, assures them they're unlikely to face prosecution while their commanders walk free, slowly working his way along the Khmer chain of organisation.
He retrieves extraordinary detail: two killers discuss how they supped on human gall bladders in order to cool their own flesh amid the hot work of killing - literally making themselves cold-blooded. When Sambath asks one of the pair to demonstrate on him precisely how he used to slit his victims' throats, the man speaks (much as, say, a tennis player or cricketer might) of how he favoured one particular grip because he found the alternatives uncomfortable: "I slit so many throats my hand hurt.
" In places, Sambeth's story gets in the way of the bigger picture - there are framebreaking retreats to the journalist's editing suite, when the material might have been more powerfully presented as filmed - and a little repetition creeps in towards the end, but otherwise this is a superior example of the documentary as collated testimony: a manner of gathering together crucial oral history before its subjects pass on - or, alternatively, for said subjects to get something off their chest and make peace with the past.
This review of Enemies of the People (2009) was written by Mike M on 24 Sep 2010.
Enemies of the People has generally received very positive reviews.
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