1 00:02:23,125 --> 00:02:26,417 In the middle of life, childhood returns. 2 00:02:27,083 --> 00:02:29,833 The water is sweet and bitter. 3 00:02:30,875 --> 00:02:34,750 I seek my childhood like a lost picture, 4 00:02:35,333 --> 00:02:37,625 or rather, it seeks me. 5 00:02:38,917 --> 00:02:40,917 Is it because I am 50, 6 00:02:41,708 --> 00:02:45,833 because I've seen troubled times when fear alternates with hope? 7 00:02:47,250 --> 00:02:50,417 The memory is there, now, 8 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,417 pounding at my temples, I'd like to get rid of it. 9 00:03:20,167 --> 00:03:24,500 With clay and with water, with the dead, with rice fields, 10 00:03:25,042 --> 00:03:28,083 with living hands, a man is made. 11 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,625 It doesn’t take much, it just takes will. 12 00:04:01,333 --> 00:04:04,375 His suit is white, his tie is dark 13 00:04:05,250 --> 00:04:09,000 I want to hold him close: He is my father. 14 00:04:17,625 --> 00:04:23,208 I remember the old days in Phnom Penh, the great gatherings at our house, 15 00:04:24,500 --> 00:04:26,917 I remember laughter and singing, 16 00:04:27,833 --> 00:04:33,042 the smell of caramel, fish, spices, and mango. 17 00:04:33,958 --> 00:04:38,250 We danced, we chattered with aunts and uncles. 18 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,625 Cousins brought fruit - guavas and jackfruit. 19 00:05:24,958 --> 00:05:27,417 It was a time for studies and books. 20 00:05:28,750 --> 00:05:32,250 I loved to hear my father read us poetry at night. 21 00:05:33,292 --> 00:05:35,708 I remember how sweet life was. 22 00:05:43,042 --> 00:05:44,792 Then came the war. 23 00:05:45,708 --> 00:05:49,125 The bombings were nearer in the 1970s. 24 00:05:50,250 --> 00:05:55,292 I remember the first who had died, our fear, my sorrow as a child. 25 00:05:59,958 --> 00:06:03,458 So many pictures that go by again and again in a row. 26 00:06:03,625 --> 00:06:05,875 We think we owned them because we've seen them. 27 00:06:06,542 --> 00:06:08,958 When we discover a picture on a screen 28 00:06:09,083 --> 00:06:12,125 that is neither painting, nor shroud… 29 00:06:12,833 --> 00:06:14,958 …then it is not missing. 30 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:22,750 Phnom Penh was surrounded by the Khmer Rouge, 31 00:06:23,208 --> 00:06:26,583 who'd come to end injustice and exploitation. 32 00:06:27,625 --> 00:06:31,583 They entered the capital on April 17th, 1975. 33 00:06:32,875 --> 00:06:37,500 There were no cries of joy only silent expectancy. 34 00:06:38,042 --> 00:06:39,583 I was there. 35 00:06:40,208 --> 00:06:45,292 I remember the look in the eyes of the young soldiers: As if we had not been there. 36 00:06:46,875 --> 00:06:51,583 They had their orders: Never touch the enemy by the hand. 37 00:06:52,625 --> 00:06:56,792 The enemy, that's me. I am 13. 38 00:07:00,125 --> 00:07:03,083 The central bank blows up with all its money. 39 00:07:03,875 --> 00:07:06,083 There's no turning back. 40 00:07:08,042 --> 00:07:11,875 The city is impure, the city is corrupt. 41 00:07:12,792 --> 00:07:14,958 It is emptied within hours. 42 00:07:15,083 --> 00:07:18,000 2 million people are thrown onto the roads; 43 00:07:18,417 --> 00:07:23,167 they leave behind their homes, their loved ones, their memories… 44 00:07:23,625 --> 00:07:25,750 …in fact: the former world. 45 00:07:26,333 --> 00:07:30,708 Long live the glorious April 17th, a day overflowing with joy! 46 00:07:31,958 --> 00:07:36,042 The revolution is pure, it wants nothing of people. 47 00:07:37,458 --> 00:07:39,792 Now, Phnom Penh can be filmed 48 00:07:40,417 --> 00:07:43,083 like in the prophecy of Puth Tomniey: 49 00:07:44,375 --> 00:07:47,750 Houses with no occupants, streets with no pedestrians, 50 00:07:48,167 --> 00:07:51,125 stairs that no one will climb, 51 00:07:51,833 --> 00:07:54,500 flowing rivers of blood. 52 00:09:13,792 --> 00:09:16,333 Very soon we were separated. 53 00:09:17,792 --> 00:09:21,125 We headed into the country in the middle of dry season. 54 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,208 We are hungry and thirsty. 55 00:09:25,417 --> 00:09:28,917 We go from hand to hand 56 00:09:29,333 --> 00:09:33,000 like animals in cattle cars, then wagons. 57 00:09:33,958 --> 00:09:38,000 Phnom Penh's deportation is a missing picture. 58 00:09:48,833 --> 00:09:52,000 Immediately, the Khmer Rouge counted, 59 00:09:52,542 --> 00:09:57,375 then separated women and men, adults and children. 60 00:09:58,625 --> 00:10:02,042 Souvernirs were forbidden. 61 00:10:02,958 --> 00:10:07,000 Suddenly, there are no individuals, only numbers. 62 00:10:09,917 --> 00:10:12,083 Then they cut our hair, 63 00:10:12,500 --> 00:10:17,708 they take our watches, glasses, toys, books. 64 00:10:18,958 --> 00:10:22,833 They die our clothes black, they change our first names. 65 00:10:24,750 --> 00:10:26,708 We are the New People: 66 00:10:27,125 --> 00:10:34,000 bourgeois, intellectuals, and capitalists, to be re-educated, to be destroyed. 67 00:10:38,667 --> 00:10:41,750 You must embrace the proletarian condition! 68 00:10:43,500 --> 00:10:47,958 This is the new land that we call Democratic Kampuchea. 69 00:10:49,208 --> 00:10:51,458 A factory with smoke most unsettling: 70 00:10:51,792 --> 00:10:54,250 Concrete dikes and rice fields, 71 00:10:54,625 --> 00:10:55,792 no people. 72 00:11:02,042 --> 00:11:06,417 All of society is organized collectively and militarily 73 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:08,875 in working units. 74 00:11:09,542 --> 00:11:12,625 The Angkar takes care of you all, comrades! 75 00:11:13,083 --> 00:11:16,125 Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers... 76 00:11:17,458 --> 00:11:22,708 The Angkar is the organization, it is all. It is each: 77 00:11:23,542 --> 00:11:26,917 it is the young Khmer Rouge, the village chief, 78 00:11:27,667 --> 00:11:32,000 the head of the torture center, and Pol Pot. 79 00:11:33,667 --> 00:11:37,750 They must be watched, these barefoot people of the sand, and dust. 80 00:11:51,833 --> 00:11:57,042 Soon there will be no more faces, no more friends, no more love… 81 00:11:57,958 --> 00:12:02,667 no more father and mother, soon there will be no more emotion, 82 00:12:03,667 --> 00:12:05,792 and even words will be transformed. 83 00:12:07,125 --> 00:12:13,083 Each being will be a revolutionary - or fertilizer for the rice fields. 84 00:12:25,917 --> 00:12:30,708 To hang on, you must hide within yourself a strength, a memory, 85 00:12:31,458 --> 00:12:33,708 an idea that nobody can take from you. 86 00:12:34,458 --> 00:12:37,917 For a picture can be stolen, a thought cannot. 87 00:13:07,583 --> 00:13:10,250 The Angkar requests that you attend 88 00:13:10,375 --> 00:13:13,583 a study session to reconstruct yourself. 89 00:13:15,083 --> 00:13:20,875 Comrades, soon we will be masters of the water, of the earth and the elements. 90 00:13:21,375 --> 00:13:26,208 Every hectare will yield 3 tons of rice, or 5, or 7. 91 00:13:27,750 --> 00:13:29,625 Then we will be 10 million. 92 00:13:30,708 --> 00:13:35,458 There will be no more hunger, no more fatigue, no more injustice. 93 00:13:36,458 --> 00:13:39,458 The elderly will be fed by machines. 94 00:13:40,917 --> 00:13:43,917 The Angkar is perceptive and full of solutions. 95 00:13:46,083 --> 00:13:48,708 The people are the brain of the Angkar. 96 00:13:52,958 --> 00:13:56,958 Long live the extraordinary grandiose Kampuchean revolution! 97 00:13:57,792 --> 00:14:00,875 Long life to a new society devoid of rich and poor! 98 00:14:02,958 --> 00:14:06,750 We raise our fists, we repeat the slogans. 99 00:14:08,167 --> 00:14:15,000 The Angkar will establish a model society, unique in the world, without class division. 100 00:14:51,250 --> 00:14:55,042 In this perfect world, the dams are made of concrete, 101 00:14:55,500 --> 00:14:58,958 these embankments are paved. Everything is in order. 102 00:15:00,375 --> 00:15:03,708 At the top of this utopia, there’s a red flag, 103 00:15:04,375 --> 00:15:06,625 and of course, this truth: 104 00:15:07,667 --> 00:15:09,500 Comrades you are so very free! 105 00:15:11,708 --> 00:15:16,083 For now, you must obey, dig ceaselessly, 106 00:15:16,667 --> 00:15:19,750 move earth, move rock. 107 00:15:24,708 --> 00:15:29,042 For months, I dug a pond on arid plains. 108 00:15:29,792 --> 00:15:32,583 I never saw water. Not once. 109 00:15:33,542 --> 00:15:38,500 Long live Democratic Kampuchea! A prodigious leap forward, 110 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,958 a marvellous leap forward, an extraordinary, grandiose leap forward! 111 00:15:44,833 --> 00:15:49,625 Be determined to work in the rice fields! Don't count on the heavens! 112 00:15:54,333 --> 00:15:58,833 These slogans have not left me, I sometimes hear them still. 113 00:17:22,125 --> 00:17:24,708 Former society thought only of feasting. 114 00:17:25,500 --> 00:17:28,750 Collectivism is the fertilizer and the fodder. 115 00:17:29,917 --> 00:17:33,125 From now on, a saucepan is individualistic. 116 00:17:34,333 --> 00:17:36,500 It is forbidden to possess one. 117 00:17:38,667 --> 00:17:40,875 So we share everything. 118 00:17:41,417 --> 00:17:43,958 Our only belonging is our spoon. 119 00:18:31,125 --> 00:18:34,042 With hunger you get a man. 120 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,750 You get them all, living or dead. 121 00:18:40,458 --> 00:18:43,750 As for the sick, or those who do not obey - 122 00:18:44,333 --> 00:18:48,000 they are not fed, or only get half-rations. 123 00:18:50,458 --> 00:18:52,875 Hunger, it's for us. 124 00:18:54,333 --> 00:18:59,833 Hunger, it’s a weapon. The new people are a parasitic plant! 125 00:19:15,792 --> 00:19:19,792 The ancient people, who watch us, live in the granaries. 126 00:19:20,792 --> 00:19:22,625 They are never hungry. 127 00:19:22,917 --> 00:19:25,708 To re-educate is first to destroy. 128 00:19:28,333 --> 00:19:31,833 In Phnom Penh, there is a people to wipe out. 129 00:19:32,583 --> 00:19:37,375 "Conquest through emptiness" is a picture glaring with simplicity. 130 00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:43,500 The Khmer Rouge want a man made of metal, a pure instrument of revolution. 131 00:19:44,958 --> 00:19:50,083 Khmer Rouge leaders are the universal and homogeneous state. 132 00:19:50,708 --> 00:19:52,458 They never look at each other. 133 00:19:53,125 --> 00:19:58,708 There is of course Pol Pot, Brother Number One, whom we recognize by his fan. 134 00:19:59,792 --> 00:20:08,208 And then his comrades, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Son Sen. 135 00:20:59,917 --> 00:21:03,000 Rise, you damned of the earth! 136 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:08,542 The damned, that's us: We in the fields, in chains, 137 00:21:09,417 --> 00:21:12,083 wandering like ghosts. 138 00:21:13,750 --> 00:21:18,333 In this capital, 4 years empty, there remains the Central Committee, 139 00:21:19,542 --> 00:21:23,833 and Ponhea Yat high school, which becomes center S-21. 140 00:21:26,667 --> 00:21:30,625 Here, they whip, electrocute, 141 00:21:31,083 --> 00:21:36,375 they cut, they force-feed excrements, they get confessions. 142 00:21:38,417 --> 00:21:41,958 It all starts with purity and ends with hate. 143 00:21:56,583 --> 00:22:00,417 I know the Khmer Rouge photographs executions. 144 00:22:01,917 --> 00:22:06,750 Why? For proof, to complete a report? 145 00:22:08,250 --> 00:22:12,125 What man having photographed this scene would not want it to go missing? 146 00:22:13,833 --> 00:22:15,667 I look for this picture. 147 00:22:16,708 --> 00:22:21,375 If at last I should find it, I could not show it, of course. 148 00:22:22,958 --> 00:22:25,292 And anyway, what would a picture of a dead man reveal? 149 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,500 I prefer this anonymous young woman 150 00:22:29,875 --> 00:22:33,625 who defies the camera, and the eye of her torturer, 151 00:22:34,167 --> 00:22:36,083 and still looks straight at us. 152 00:22:46,292 --> 00:22:51,208 Scarlet blood that covers Kampuchean cities and plains - our fatherland, 153 00:22:52,125 --> 00:22:55,042 sublime blood of workers and peasants, 154 00:22:55,958 --> 00:23:01,042 sublime blood of men and of women, of revolutionary fighters, 155 00:23:01,667 --> 00:23:05,333 Blood turned to implacable hatred and resolved fighting, 156 00:23:06,250 --> 00:23:08,500 you freed us from slavery. 157 00:23:11,167 --> 00:23:14,583 Yet, one does not film with impunity. 158 00:23:16,208 --> 00:23:23,542 I look at these child laborers, their hands, their faces, their weary bodies. 159 00:23:24,708 --> 00:23:29,042 This young avanguard works toward its own destruction. 160 00:24:03,208 --> 00:24:06,917 At night, I told stories from before, 161 00:24:07,875 --> 00:24:14,458 of ghosts, of witches, of lost travelers, and mischievous children. 162 00:24:15,667 --> 00:24:19,167 So they put me in the kitchen, where we ate well. 163 00:24:20,167 --> 00:24:23,833 I told the story of the Apollo rocket, racing for the moon 164 00:24:24,458 --> 00:24:27,375 to these revolutionaries who spoke in numbers and codes. 165 00:24:28,708 --> 00:24:34,583 Scarlet blood that covers the cities and plains, do you cover the moon, too? 166 00:25:35,125 --> 00:25:41,042 I dreamt of walking on it, like Neil Armstrong, lightfooted and childlike. 167 00:25:42,167 --> 00:25:46,333 One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. 168 00:26:17,292 --> 00:26:19,708 "But who are these people?", asked a comrade. 169 00:26:20,500 --> 00:26:25,750 "These people who walk on the moon, they are Americans. I saw the pictures back then." 170 00:26:26,875 --> 00:26:30,792 "Americans? You're lying, that’s impossible." 171 00:26:32,542 --> 00:26:36,542 The storyteller confesses, the storyteller is killed. 172 00:26:37,042 --> 00:26:41,083 The great leap for mankind is not to be found in capitalist propaganda. 173 00:26:41,333 --> 00:26:44,667 It is here, for we who are hungry. 174 00:26:46,875 --> 00:26:50,042 Long live the independent masterful way 175 00:26:50,167 --> 00:26:53,208 of Democratric Kampuchea's revolutionary Angkar! 176 00:26:54,208 --> 00:26:56,667 Long live its extraordinary clearvoyance! 177 00:26:58,958 --> 00:27:04,958 On our moon there’s nothing, parched earth and dust bury it all. 178 00:27:06,542 --> 00:27:11,417 It took me years to learn to walk upon it, bare feet on thorns. 179 00:27:46,750 --> 00:27:49,292 Muddy water trickles down my throat. 180 00:27:49,958 --> 00:27:53,375 Little by little, I disappear, I'm nothing anymore. 181 00:27:55,292 --> 00:27:57,667 It is strange to drink mud. 182 00:27:58,458 --> 00:28:04,375 The buffalo watch us: "How odd these humans are to drink our water!" 183 00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:13,333 A Nestlé tin becomes our unit of measure. 184 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,208 It contains 250 grams of rice. 185 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:22,417 Very soon, famine strikes: These 250 grams, we share them daily. 186 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:28,958 7 of us, then 16, then 25. We share hunger. 187 00:29:20,625 --> 00:29:22,083 My mother fights for us: 188 00:29:22,833 --> 00:29:27,917 She builds a shack of branches, leaves and vines. 189 00:29:28,750 --> 00:29:33,167 Each day she walks two hours so we may drink clean water. 190 00:29:34,542 --> 00:29:37,750 She gets permission to take my father a half-ration. 191 00:29:38,958 --> 00:29:40,917 But one night he tells us: 192 00:29:41,458 --> 00:29:47,042 "I will no longer eat animal food. No. I am a man." 193 00:29:48,625 --> 00:29:50,667 And he stops eating. 194 00:29:53,375 --> 00:29:56,208 I don't understand, I resent him. 195 00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:35,125 They found some sheet metal 196 00:30:35,625 --> 00:30:37,875 to carry his body to the pit grave. 197 00:30:38,875 --> 00:30:42,875 My mother doesn't cry, not a tear before the Khmers Rouge. 198 00:30:52,958 --> 00:30:58,375 That night, she tells me how my father should have been buried: by his own, 199 00:30:59,167 --> 00:31:03,458 by his good teacher friends, traditionally and peacefully. 200 00:31:05,375 --> 00:31:11,542 This "funeral in words" I don't want to forget: it was an act of resistance. 201 00:32:16,125 --> 00:32:20,125 My father came from a poor family, he believed in schools. 202 00:32:21,417 --> 00:32:27,000 He dreamt of sending his sisters and brothers, his children, and ancestors. 203 00:32:27,833 --> 00:32:30,000 So we should be a free people. 204 00:32:30,958 --> 00:32:35,000 He didn't abandon us, he was teaching us free will. 205 00:32:38,625 --> 00:32:41,375 I still feel his soul returned to our home. 206 00:32:42,500 --> 00:32:47,083 Where he can at last recite in peace his favorite poem, by Prévert: 207 00:32:48,375 --> 00:32:52,875 "Black hair, black hair, Caressed by waves, 208 00:32:54,375 --> 00:32:58,625 Black hair, black hair, Tousled by winds." 209 00:33:02,625 --> 00:33:06,375 Here, schools become extermination centers. 210 00:33:07,625 --> 00:33:12,708 Here, pigs become readers since readers were pigs. 211 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,750 Here, every soldier has a pen in his pocket, 212 00:33:19,750 --> 00:33:21,667 sometimes a watch on his wrist. 213 00:33:23,667 --> 00:33:28,625 For us, it is forbidden, but it is a sign, a distinction 214 00:33:28,750 --> 00:33:30,917 in a land that hates knowledge. 215 00:33:35,417 --> 00:33:37,417 The spade is you pen! 216 00:33:38,208 --> 00:33:40,125 The rice field is your paper! 217 00:33:53,292 --> 00:33:58,875 Here is the "school of applied electricity" intended to train technicians. 218 00:34:00,250 --> 00:34:04,125 These students of this school must be children of poor peasants, 219 00:34:04,750 --> 00:34:06,542 or the lower middle class, 220 00:34:06,958 --> 00:34:10,792 or fighters, girls and boys from the revolutionary army. 221 00:34:13,042 --> 00:34:15,000 Comrade Trang is 16 years old. 222 00:34:16,167 --> 00:34:20,792 At 9, he joined the revolution and the revolutionary army. 223 00:34:22,125 --> 00:34:24,458 He fought on many battlefields. 224 00:34:25,500 --> 00:34:27,125 He was also wounded. 225 00:34:30,583 --> 00:34:34,958 There are many children like comrade Trang at the front and behind it, 226 00:34:35,750 --> 00:34:37,292 they are countless. 227 00:34:38,042 --> 00:34:41,000 They all have exceptional biographies. 228 00:34:41,708 --> 00:34:46,458 Today, they work hard with all their might and heart 229 00:34:47,042 --> 00:34:51,167 within their units to defend and rebuild the country. 230 00:35:04,542 --> 00:35:10,042 I spent my own childhood in film studios with a director neighbor. 231 00:35:11,208 --> 00:35:16,125 I loved the wonderful world of wigs and costumes, colors and gold. 232 00:35:17,042 --> 00:35:19,417 The land of giants and fairy tales. 233 00:35:20,917 --> 00:35:25,042 I loved it backstage, where beautiful actresses seemed to dance just for me. 234 00:37:41,542 --> 00:37:43,667 I collected scraps of film 235 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,958 that I watched using a box and a small light. 236 00:37:50,167 --> 00:37:56,167 Then that world was destroyed. The cinemas were closed, the artists were executed, 237 00:37:57,417 --> 00:38:02,167 the singers, technicians, and the directors were sent to fields. 238 00:38:12,958 --> 00:38:16,042 A Khmer Rouge film is always a slogan: 239 00:38:17,292 --> 00:38:22,083 Practice is worth all theories, so don’t entertain personal ideas! 240 00:38:23,333 --> 00:38:28,125 He who has the disease of former society, let him take Lenin for a pill! 241 00:38:30,667 --> 00:38:36,500 From now on, there is but one actor: It is not the people, but Pol Pot. 242 00:38:37,833 --> 00:38:41,167 He is the revolution, his myth must be forged. 243 00:38:53,625 --> 00:38:56,708 A hut is built in the jungle, a wooden set, 244 00:38:57,333 --> 00:39:01,083 Pol Pot is a revolutionary, he drinks only tea, 245 00:39:02,042 --> 00:39:06,292 uses an oil lamp, washes outdoors, 246 00:39:06,917 --> 00:39:12,167 lives with his country, his books, his gun, his comrades. 247 00:39:13,542 --> 00:39:15,167 He lives the ideology. 248 00:39:32,917 --> 00:39:36,583 Brother Number One was inspired by young humanity, 249 00:39:37,958 --> 00:39:41,208 the original people: the Jarai, 250 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,458 the Cuoi, the Bunong. 251 00:39:45,167 --> 00:39:49,083 A sparse handful of families who shared everything in common. 252 00:39:50,583 --> 00:39:55,667 By observing them he understood, like Rousseau’s noble savage. 253 00:39:57,500 --> 00:40:01,917 Already in Paris, Pol Pot signed his articles «Original Khmer». 254 00:40:03,667 --> 00:40:06,958 The Khmer Rouge, it's Marx and Rousseau: 255 00:40:08,167 --> 00:40:12,125 Integral communism and the pure, original world. 256 00:40:13,125 --> 00:40:14,833 A perfect society. 257 00:40:23,875 --> 00:40:26,958 The radiant revolution shines with all its glory! 258 00:40:29,208 --> 00:40:34,708 These peasants, scrawned, abandoned, adhere to the fight for justice. 259 00:40:36,167 --> 00:40:40,083 They look good on the new country's banknotes, 260 00:40:41,667 --> 00:40:43,833 which will never be used. 261 00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,792 There is no more selling, no more trade, 262 00:40:49,333 --> 00:40:52,208 no more complaints, no more theft, no more pillaging, 263 00:40:53,375 --> 00:40:57,667 no more private property, there are no more problems. 264 00:41:04,125 --> 00:41:09,542 The new people are re-educated in the rice fields, plunged into the original world, 265 00:41:10,583 --> 00:41:12,250 that they be purified. 266 00:41:13,583 --> 00:41:17,958 They must be forged, returned to ancient ways, or be destroyed. 267 00:41:19,958 --> 00:41:26,417 Pol Pot says: "Those whom we cannot re-educate, we will fight like enemies." 268 00:43:00,583 --> 00:43:06,583 The Angkar never uses any object from imperialist or feudal society. 269 00:43:18,583 --> 00:43:23,917 Capitalist's automobiles confess their crimes; they, too, are re-educated. 270 00:43:25,625 --> 00:43:28,708 These cars work toward edifying the new country. 271 00:43:35,542 --> 00:43:39,500 Evenings, after the work site, off for indoctrination. 272 00:43:40,750 --> 00:43:44,958 Words change meaning, we speak in slogans. 273 00:43:46,125 --> 00:43:49,458 The comrade with many faults is the enemy. 274 00:43:50,500 --> 00:43:55,208 Whoever protests is an enemy. Whoever opposes is a corpse. 275 00:44:01,542 --> 00:44:05,292 A 9 year old boy denounces his mother for picking mangoes. 276 00:44:06,208 --> 00:44:10,542 A child shouts: "The comrade recognized her crime!" 277 00:44:11,750 --> 00:44:13,958 His mother weeps softly. 278 00:44:14,417 --> 00:44:19,792 To confess is to accept to die for the revolution to be just. 279 00:44:21,250 --> 00:44:26,042 When humans will be free and equal to this degree, will they still be humans? 280 00:44:29,125 --> 00:44:30,833 The mother closes her eyes. 281 00:44:32,042 --> 00:44:34,375 Is it to picture her child? 282 00:44:35,542 --> 00:44:37,375 She says nothing. 283 00:44:44,292 --> 00:44:49,417 Then, she's taken into the forest by guards, never to return. 284 00:45:31,583 --> 00:45:36,833 I want to escape the mud, my hunger, my black clothes. 285 00:45:38,167 --> 00:45:43,333 Walking in water is torture. I collapse from exhaustion. 286 00:46:15,750 --> 00:46:18,292 Sometimes, an airplane crosses the sky. 287 00:46:19,250 --> 00:46:21,042 Is it observing us? 288 00:46:21,708 --> 00:46:26,208 Will it parachute a camera to me, so the whole world will know at last? 289 00:46:27,667 --> 00:46:29,583 The missing picture: That's us. 290 00:46:30,875 --> 00:46:32,917 This unreal airplane saves me. 291 00:46:33,875 --> 00:46:38,333 I have no more name, no more family, no more hope. 292 00:46:39,500 --> 00:46:41,542 But I still have a human heart. 293 00:46:43,375 --> 00:46:47,167 I think of the old days, of my brother who disappeared in Phnom Penh 294 00:46:47,583 --> 00:46:50,292 on April 17th, 1975, 295 00:46:50,833 --> 00:46:54,167 with his guitar. The Khmer Rouge must not have liked him, 296 00:46:54,958 --> 00:46:59,833 not his smile, nor his teenage bangs, not his songs. 297 00:47:52,125 --> 00:47:57,083 Color has vanished. Like laughter, song, and dance. 298 00:47:58,542 --> 00:48:00,875 Our day-to-day life is a combat, 299 00:48:01,667 --> 00:48:06,458 a war against nature, against words, against the enemy. 300 00:48:08,292 --> 00:48:11,667 The children sent to the front are small, 301 00:48:12,292 --> 00:48:14,875 but full of energy to fulfill their duty. 302 00:48:17,083 --> 00:48:23,375 And me, I kept repeating: "The Angkar never makes mistakes, the Angkar is everything". 303 00:48:36,125 --> 00:48:39,083 I don't wish anyone to see a child dying: 304 00:48:40,250 --> 00:48:46,500 Feet swollen, face swollen, as if all that was left was water. 305 00:49:20,458 --> 00:49:24,958 The little girl is shaking of hunger. So she steals corn. 306 00:49:25,250 --> 00:49:30,167 The group leader catches her and brings her back to us. It is a crime. 307 00:49:31,667 --> 00:49:37,458 The grandmother forbids her to eat the corn: "We don't steal. We are proud." 308 00:49:38,833 --> 00:49:42,083 The little girl cries and me, I don't get it. 309 00:49:50,125 --> 00:49:53,208 During the night, the child chews salt. 310 00:49:53,875 --> 00:49:58,125 Her teeth crunch. Hunger strikes at night. 311 00:50:08,625 --> 00:50:14,917 She sleeps next to me. Her belly's swollen, her expression blank. She sighs. 312 00:50:16,042 --> 00:50:21,042 She calls her mother, she calls her father, then she calls no more 313 00:50:22,083 --> 00:50:23,917 and we buried her. 314 00:50:25,750 --> 00:50:28,208 The two other children died soon afterward. 315 00:50:29,875 --> 00:50:33,583 I wish to be rid of this picture of hunger and suffering, 316 00:50:34,792 --> 00:50:36,333 so I show it to you. 317 00:51:48,500 --> 00:51:50,833 The mother is transported to the hospital. 318 00:51:52,333 --> 00:51:54,833 There, she learns that her 16-year-old daughter has died. 319 00:51:56,625 --> 00:51:58,958 Here, everyone dies. 320 00:52:01,375 --> 00:52:03,625 Without a word, she strokes her forehead, 321 00:52:04,875 --> 00:52:07,542 she picks the lice off the beautiful, gaunt face, 322 00:52:09,125 --> 00:52:12,417 and she, too, lies down on the wooden planks. 323 00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:02,625 Fishing is forbidden yet fish are down by the hundreds. 324 00:53:03,875 --> 00:53:05,708 In hiding, I catch one. 325 00:53:06,917 --> 00:53:09,708 Two days later, I take it to my mother. 326 00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:12,708 But she's already dead. 327 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,000 So, I understood I would be alone. 328 00:53:20,375 --> 00:53:25,292 I picture our house again, our kitchen, the garden, 329 00:53:26,125 --> 00:53:29,583 the notebooks, my parents' faces. 330 00:53:29,958 --> 00:53:33,417 These pictures are not missing, they are inside me. 331 00:53:56,542 --> 00:54:01,125 We are determined to fulfill our 1977 political duty 332 00:54:01,792 --> 00:54:04,583 with an extraordinary grand leap forward. 333 00:54:06,833 --> 00:54:10,458 I have become one of these children at the work sites. 334 00:54:12,125 --> 00:54:15,542 Looking closely at this movement, one sees the fatigue, the falls, 335 00:54:16,333 --> 00:54:21,292 the gaunt faces. One sees the cruelty. 336 00:54:23,125 --> 00:54:25,333 One sees that some can no longer work, 337 00:54:26,917 --> 00:54:29,292 yet there is a camera. 338 00:54:33,083 --> 00:54:37,083 Here is the teacher, that's what we call her. 339 00:54:38,083 --> 00:54:42,208 She teaches us the spade and shovel, and ideology. 340 00:54:46,875 --> 00:54:49,500 Let us live in perfect equality! 341 00:54:50,625 --> 00:54:52,500 It's the children's revolt. 342 00:54:53,625 --> 00:54:58,375 Of course, each must count on no one else! 343 00:55:00,375 --> 00:55:03,083 But Khmer Rouge cadres eat better than us. 344 00:55:03,917 --> 00:55:08,208 They never go hungry. Where is the equality? 345 00:55:09,125 --> 00:55:12,250 So our leaders do their self-criticism. 346 00:55:14,708 --> 00:55:19,833 My friends and I are sent to a very tough camp the very next day. 347 00:56:02,833 --> 00:56:07,708 At this work site, we must dig 3 m³ of dirt in the morning, 348 00:56:08,583 --> 00:56:12,167 and make 25 to 30 kilos of fertilizer in the afternoon, 349 00:56:12,792 --> 00:56:15,292 from leaves and cow manure. 350 00:56:17,667 --> 00:56:21,083 There were so few cows, trees and leaves 351 00:56:21,833 --> 00:56:24,000 that these quotas are unattainable. 352 00:56:25,958 --> 00:56:28,708 If we don't manage to extract these 3 m³, 353 00:56:29,333 --> 00:56:31,750 they are raised to 5 m³. 354 00:56:36,708 --> 00:56:40,458 Work eagerly, don’t be defeatist before the enemy! 355 00:56:41,667 --> 00:56:44,375 You must love and respect the collectivity! 356 00:56:46,208 --> 00:56:50,083 This camp was a tomb guarded by a man in a felt hat. 357 00:56:51,125 --> 00:56:53,583 His dog watched us curiously. 358 00:56:55,042 --> 00:56:57,958 This man beat those who didn't obey his rules. 359 00:56:59,042 --> 00:57:04,125 We were forbidden to dig for roots to eat, and forbidden to speak. 360 00:57:22,625 --> 00:57:27,750 He was eating alone and had his own food. So did his dog. 361 00:57:36,667 --> 00:57:38,750 We share our children's rations. 362 00:57:40,625 --> 00:57:44,417 In Paris, or elsewhere, those who loved our slogans 363 00:57:44,667 --> 00:57:47,917 those who read books, have they seen these pictures? 364 00:57:48,750 --> 00:57:50,625 Or were they missing? 365 00:58:23,333 --> 00:58:27,417 I return to the past, to all those who died, 366 00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:34,875 my sisters, my brothers, my cousins, my parents. 367 00:58:36,333 --> 00:58:38,500 Childhood is both far and near, 368 00:58:39,417 --> 00:58:45,292 with its gentleness, its joyful cries, its laughter, and voices. 369 00:58:46,708 --> 00:58:48,667 Childhood is a refrain. 370 01:00:16,167 --> 01:00:20,542 I haven't been home since April 17th, 1975. 371 01:00:22,125 --> 01:00:24,708 Yet, I remember every detail: 372 01:00:25,333 --> 01:00:31,000 The paintings, the doors, the jugs, the hallways... 373 01:00:32,500 --> 01:00:38,000 My house became a gambling dive, a karaoke club, then a brothel. 374 01:00:39,375 --> 01:00:43,500 It, too, was voided, torn from its history. 375 01:00:45,417 --> 01:00:48,667 There is no truth, there is only cinema. 376 01:00:49,167 --> 01:00:51,417 The revolution is cinema. 377 01:02:24,083 --> 01:02:27,625 I remember the great flood in 1978. 378 01:02:28,417 --> 01:02:32,333 I was already at a labor camp, and we were so hungry. 379 01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:38,458 Then a huge bale of rice straw washed up on the river bank. 380 01:02:39,917 --> 01:02:44,000 We even found eggs! So we ate. 381 01:03:25,292 --> 01:03:28,667 With film, too, the harvest is glorious. 382 01:03:29,625 --> 01:03:34,000 There is grain, there are these calm, determined faces. 383 01:03:34,833 --> 01:03:37,750 Like in a painting, a poem. 384 01:03:39,333 --> 01:03:42,667 At last, I see the revolution they so promised us. 385 01:03:43,583 --> 01:03:45,292 It exists only on film. 386 01:04:23,125 --> 01:04:25,458 These sacks of rice were not for us. 387 01:04:26,042 --> 01:04:28,167 Were they reserved for our leaders? 388 01:04:28,917 --> 01:04:32,917 Or shipped abroad, since they are marked in Arabic numerals? 389 01:04:34,333 --> 01:04:38,292 Or were they film props, full of sand? 390 01:04:40,958 --> 01:04:43,333 Our every move was scrutinized, 391 01:04:43,958 --> 01:04:48,417 our every breath, and even our silence, 392 01:04:50,167 --> 01:04:53,333 but the great famine escaped Khmer Rouge leaders. 393 01:04:54,667 --> 01:04:58,833 They did not know, they did not see? Could they not act? 394 01:05:00,292 --> 01:05:03,000 Does the truth lie in the slogans, so glorious, 395 01:05:03,833 --> 01:05:06,542 or in these pictures that are not missing? 396 01:05:24,958 --> 01:05:26,875 This is what Pol Pot has to say: 397 01:05:27,042 --> 01:05:31,750 "Currently our cooperatives are well-established units, 398 01:05:32,292 --> 01:05:34,417 politically and in spirit, 399 01:05:35,250 --> 01:05:38,375 capable of accomplishing all of the Angkar's directives. 400 01:05:39,667 --> 01:05:41,250 Throughout the land 401 01:05:41,500 --> 01:05:45,167 they have fulfilled their revolutionary duties well, 402 01:05:46,167 --> 01:05:50,000 they have transformed our sad, dry regions of former times 403 01:05:50,292 --> 01:05:52,417 poor, and without drinking water. 404 01:05:54,042 --> 01:05:56,958 Now, there are ponds great and small, 405 01:05:57,333 --> 01:05:59,167 and nice interconnecting green 406 01:05:59,667 --> 01:06:01,750 rice fields and orchards. 407 01:06:02,875 --> 01:06:05,833 These cooperatives are founding a new society 408 01:06:06,125 --> 01:06:08,833 purged of corruption and rogues of all sorts. 409 01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:13,333 These cooperatives are founding a new society, 410 01:06:13,625 --> 01:06:18,458 collectivist, uncorrupt, equal, and prosperous. 411 01:06:19,958 --> 01:06:22,750 These cooperatives live a perfect existence 412 01:06:23,250 --> 01:06:27,375 in terms of food, health, sanitation, 413 01:06:27,500 --> 01:06:31,458 culture, studies, and education. 414 01:06:35,292 --> 01:06:37,125 The reality is this: 415 01:06:38,292 --> 01:06:43,792 Straw huts, drought, exhaustion, hunger, 416 01:06:44,917 --> 01:06:47,208 neon lights to work by night, 417 01:06:48,208 --> 01:06:50,542 speakers blaring slogans. 418 01:06:52,458 --> 01:06:55,250 Ideology was rampant in the fields. 419 01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:18,000 The one who shot this footage, slow and true, was named Ang Sarun. 420 01:07:19,458 --> 01:07:21,500 He was a Khmer Rouge cameraman. 421 01:07:22,708 --> 01:07:25,458 To him, we also owe this footage of a speech by Pol Pot. 422 01:07:26,875 --> 01:07:30,708 Why this haze? Is it a technical glitch? 423 01:07:31,333 --> 01:07:33,458 Or did he mean to show the children in rags, 424 01:07:34,792 --> 01:07:37,875 to show Brother Number One the true state of the nation? 425 01:07:39,750 --> 01:07:42,750 The cameraman is tortured, then executed. 426 01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:47,542 His body disappears, his story disappears. 427 01:07:48,583 --> 01:07:49,958 But not his footage. 428 01:07:52,875 --> 01:07:55,542 Let us commit to brandishing ever higher 429 01:07:55,833 --> 01:07:58,042 the red standard of the revolution! 430 01:07:58,875 --> 01:08:02,917 It sounds like Mao, but it's an Angkar slogan. 431 01:08:04,917 --> 01:08:10,208 Pol Pot goes to the airport in person to greet Zhang Chunqiao of the Gang of Four, 432 01:08:10,958 --> 01:08:13,875 and Geng Biao. 433 01:08:14,875 --> 01:08:17,417 Chinese comrades inspired the policies 434 01:08:17,500 --> 01:08:19,917 and ideology of Democratic Kampuchea. 435 01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:23,125 This picture of fraternity is not missing. 436 01:08:31,500 --> 01:08:34,000 The great leap forward, is it not wonderful? 437 01:08:35,042 --> 01:08:37,083 Is not each day a celebration? 438 01:08:39,375 --> 01:08:42,042 Is not Kampuchea succeeding 439 01:08:42,167 --> 01:08:46,500 through purity, through a void, where the Chinese Revolution failed? 440 01:08:49,792 --> 01:08:53,875 Is not Kampuchea an extraordinary laboratory of ideology? 441 01:08:54,542 --> 01:08:56,833 Is not this visit a lesson? 442 01:09:36,833 --> 01:09:40,500 We hunted rats, we ate them. 443 01:09:41,208 --> 01:09:46,625 We ate insects, roots, and raw snails. 444 01:09:47,125 --> 01:09:49,667 That's how dehumanization starts: 445 01:09:50,333 --> 01:09:55,292 With hunger, with disease, with physical decay. 446 01:10:18,125 --> 01:10:20,083 Who filmed the sick people? 447 01:10:21,333 --> 01:10:24,292 Who filmed the pagodas turned hospices, 448 01:10:25,333 --> 01:10:28,458 the maggot-eaten knee of my bunk neighbor? 449 01:10:29,625 --> 01:10:33,250 Or the young woman who can't deliver, 450 01:10:33,875 --> 01:10:39,167 who screams all night, alone, hitting her belly, to death? 451 01:11:10,750 --> 01:11:14,000 Of course, there is a Khmer Rouge Hospital. 452 01:11:15,292 --> 01:11:18,250 I lived there for weeks, in the huge halls of death. 453 01:11:19,875 --> 01:11:22,583 Medicines are stored in Coca-Cola bottles, 454 01:11:23,875 --> 01:11:27,708 Patients are injected with coconut water - so pure. 455 01:11:39,333 --> 01:11:45,417 I wish I could not hear the moaning, the hiccups, the screaming, 456 01:11:46,500 --> 01:11:49,083 no longer smell the damp, rotting flesh. 457 01:11:52,375 --> 01:11:54,292 The dead go at night. 458 01:11:56,083 --> 01:12:01,292 Mornings, I'd carry them away on wood planks. And I survived. 459 01:12:04,542 --> 01:12:07,167 This man sitting on the floor is too weak: 460 01:12:08,292 --> 01:12:11,458 He does not eat, he cannot move. 461 01:12:12,375 --> 01:12:17,417 I've pictured him all these years. I hold out a hand to him. 462 01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:31,958 The Khmer Rouge have banned capitalist medicine. 463 01:12:33,250 --> 01:12:36,708 They chop roots, they boil them. 464 01:12:37,583 --> 01:12:42,083 They experiment with traditional remedies, and therefore revolutionary. 465 01:12:44,500 --> 01:12:50,208 Everywhere are experimental units using humans. At S-21, for example. 466 01:12:52,375 --> 01:12:56,833 There are not more diplomas, there are only "practical" diplomas. 467 01:13:48,292 --> 01:13:51,750 I washed the halls, I washed the sick. 468 01:13:52,917 --> 01:13:57,167 And every morning, I carried the dead down to the pit. 469 01:13:59,042 --> 01:14:01,292 Sometimes I titter at the edge of the void, 470 01:14:02,625 --> 01:14:07,417 there are hollow sounds, bones knocking, hands that seek, 471 01:14:07,750 --> 01:14:10,125 and find, those of a child. 472 01:14:11,417 --> 01:14:15,542 This child, who says he's alive and who tells the tale - that's me. 473 01:15:24,125 --> 01:15:27,042 In the middle of life, childhood returns, 474 01:15:28,625 --> 01:15:31,958 sweet and bitter, with its pictures. 475 01:15:33,458 --> 01:15:39,417 Childhood as drowning, childhood as a question: How is it that I am here? 476 01:15:40,917 --> 01:15:43,542 Why couldn't I have helped my loved ones more? 477 01:15:44,875 --> 01:15:48,125 Already in childhood, death is present. 478 01:16:56,250 --> 01:16:59,292 We understand the Khmers Rouge by watching their footage. 479 01:17:00,792 --> 01:17:04,000 Pol Pol forges a reality conformant with his desire. 480 01:17:04,875 --> 01:17:07,167 Even nature must conform. 481 01:17:35,500 --> 01:17:38,875 Sometimes, the cadres gathered several villages 482 01:17:39,292 --> 01:17:40,958 and showed a film 483 01:17:41,333 --> 01:17:45,292 boasting of bare handed fight against the colonial powers. 484 01:17:46,958 --> 01:17:52,750 Of course, we knew that the actors were bad, that the film was bad, 485 01:17:53,792 --> 01:17:57,625 and many of us slept in the back, exhausted - like me. 486 01:18:49,833 --> 01:18:53,958 For 4 years, we've been moved from work site to work site. 487 01:18:55,875 --> 01:18:59,708 How do you revolt when all you've got are black clothes and a spoon? 488 01:19:00,792 --> 01:19:03,542 When you are lost, when you are hungry? 489 01:19:05,542 --> 01:19:10,208 Some say now that it's because of Buddhism and the acceptance of destiny. 490 01:19:11,125 --> 01:19:17,167 Where were those fine minds then? In their books? In their lofty ideas? 491 01:19:19,167 --> 01:19:24,417 Here, it is not karma, not religion that kills. It's ideology. 492 01:19:31,417 --> 01:19:35,250 At the start of all totalitarism is falsity. 493 01:19:36,583 --> 01:19:39,875 You're afraid of your enemies, you're afraid of tree trunks. 494 01:19:41,750 --> 01:19:43,708 I worked in the great forests. 495 01:19:44,333 --> 01:19:47,125 We had to cut trees to plant corn crops. 496 01:19:48,125 --> 01:19:50,708 There was the heat, the humidity, 497 01:19:51,375 --> 01:19:55,292 the snakes, the tarantulas, the monkeys, 498 01:19:56,417 --> 01:19:59,125 and the lizards that some of my comrades ate. 499 01:20:02,500 --> 01:20:05,042 Don't let yourselves be vanquished by nature! 500 01:20:05,792 --> 01:20:09,167 Vow to attack, make a breach! 501 01:20:11,417 --> 01:20:13,292 These slogans never roused me, 502 01:20:14,375 --> 01:20:16,417 but the sounds of the great forest did. 503 01:21:53,125 --> 01:21:59,208 We hardened, growing used to fighting the cold, to controlling our bodies. 504 01:22:00,583 --> 01:22:03,958 After the storm, we slept in wet clothes. 505 01:22:05,625 --> 01:22:07,667 I remember the central market, 506 01:22:09,167 --> 01:22:12,750 its tart, joyful smells, the scent of jasmine. 507 01:22:14,250 --> 01:22:19,375 I remember lovers, their shy gestures, their glances. 508 01:22:23,375 --> 01:22:25,542 I remember abundance. 509 01:22:26,083 --> 01:22:29,833 I remember silk, fish, meat, 510 01:22:30,917 --> 01:22:34,500 and the smell of boiled chicken that obsessed me for 4 years. 511 01:22:35,917 --> 01:22:37,875 I remember happy meals. 512 01:22:39,917 --> 01:22:43,458 At my childhood market, people had a mouth, 513 01:22:44,083 --> 01:22:47,500 they laughed and talked. They kissed. 514 01:23:05,208 --> 01:23:08,750 It’s the same street, lively, then empty. 515 01:23:09,833 --> 01:23:13,292 Yes, the same, the neighborhoods of Phnom Penh, 516 01:23:14,167 --> 01:23:15,917 if you only open your eyes. 517 01:23:17,958 --> 01:23:20,875 I remember this world, so imperfect and human. 518 01:23:22,125 --> 01:23:24,542 2000 years of slavery, said Pol Pot. 519 01:23:27,542 --> 01:23:30,042 He’s a human being like you and me. 520 01:23:30,167 --> 01:23:35,167 He simply made a choice, an ideological choice, be it a criminal one. 521 01:23:36,875 --> 01:23:38,958 But it’s difficult. 522 01:23:39,083 --> 01:23:42,167 That's why I really wanted to make this film. 523 01:23:42,292 --> 01:23:46,083 No one is born an assassin, or an executioner. 524 01:23:46,167 --> 01:23:49,458 Our son's turned jabbers now, 525 01:23:50,125 --> 01:23:53,625 on and on he rumbles. At least he's good with words. 526 01:23:55,417 --> 01:23:58,250 Would, brother, he'd be a teacher, like you. 527 01:23:58,792 --> 01:24:01,917 But it's our story he's filming. That's us. 528 01:24:02,667 --> 01:24:07,000 But there are the poor who are hungry, the rich expropriated them, too! 529 01:24:07,125 --> 01:24:09,208 Yet, he thinks only of the Khmer Rouge! 530 01:24:16,667 --> 01:24:18,042 The father is right. 531 01:24:18,750 --> 01:24:22,958 Already before the Khmer Rouge, the poor were thrown off their land. 532 01:24:23,833 --> 01:24:26,875 They enrolled the people because of this injustice. 533 01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:30,375 And then, there were the Americans. 534 01:24:31,208 --> 01:24:34,792 They dropped 500.000 tons of bombs on the country. 535 01:24:35,333 --> 01:24:39,750 So the poor joined the revolution, they raised their fists. 536 01:24:41,042 --> 01:24:43,750 The Khmer Rouge lied to them about justice, 537 01:24:44,292 --> 01:24:49,708 about equality, about happiness, about progress. About everything. 538 01:24:51,208 --> 01:24:54,875 And these same poor still dig dirt today. 539 01:25:39,500 --> 01:25:44,042 Sometimes, I picture a child. Let's say it's me. 540 01:25:45,958 --> 01:25:47,917 He had it all wrong. 541 01:25:48,708 --> 01:25:53,333 He didn't know how to fish, to walk barefoot, or fight. 542 01:25:55,625 --> 01:25:58,458 Years later, he feels guilty 543 01:25:58,583 --> 01:26:01,750 for not having helped the destitute. 544 01:26:04,208 --> 01:26:09,458 They say talking helps. You understand, you get over it. 545 01:26:10,417 --> 01:26:13,917 For me, this wisdom will never come. 546 01:26:16,458 --> 01:26:20,917 It's not a picture of loved ones I seek. I want to touch them. 547 01:26:22,458 --> 01:26:25,792 Their voice is missing so I won't tell. 548 01:26:27,500 --> 01:26:33,375 I want to leave it all, leave my language, my country - in vain. 549 01:26:34,500 --> 01:26:36,042 And my childhood returns. 550 01:26:38,583 --> 01:26:42,750 Now, it's the boy who seeks me out. 551 01:26:43,667 --> 01:26:46,833 I see him, he wants to speak to me. 552 01:26:48,167 --> 01:26:50,125 But words are hard to find. 553 01:27:39,042 --> 01:27:42,125 This black dog is the God of Passage. 554 01:27:42,917 --> 01:27:45,000 He takes me to its boat. 555 01:27:45,958 --> 01:27:49,333 Whe I look at it, I see the man in the felt hat, 556 01:27:49,458 --> 01:27:51,875 and the river floating corpses. 557 01:27:54,333 --> 01:27:56,125 In the village where I lived, 558 01:27:56,792 --> 01:28:00,750 some families stayed on after the Khmer Rouge left. 559 01:28:02,417 --> 01:28:04,792 The young men went to work in Thailand. 560 01:28:06,083 --> 01:28:10,625 The former village chief, who was cruel and terrified us on his horse, 561 01:28:11,208 --> 01:28:12,875 was not arrested. 562 01:28:13,750 --> 01:28:17,583 He lived happily, I believe, and had many children. 563 01:28:46,000 --> 01:28:48,083 The Khmer Rouge canteen is gone. 564 01:28:49,125 --> 01:28:51,000 Hardly anything remains: 565 01:28:52,333 --> 01:28:57,667 a few shards of jugs, rusty pans, a clay oven... 566 01:28:59,375 --> 01:29:02,667 It's all over, like a cruel film. 567 01:29:08,750 --> 01:29:12,917 As for the pit graves near the hospital, where I buried so many, 568 01:29:13,833 --> 01:29:19,292 and my mother, and my sisters… The pits have become a man-made lake, 569 01:29:20,000 --> 01:29:22,417 dug out by an international organization. 570 01:29:24,167 --> 01:29:26,292 The bones have been carried away, 571 01:29:27,500 --> 01:29:29,917 pumpkins and corn have been planted. 572 01:29:31,125 --> 01:29:35,000 But the lake is so salty, and such an odd green, 573 01:29:35,750 --> 01:29:38,708 that no one dares use it, or drink from it. 574 01:30:07,500 --> 01:30:11,500 Are the dead there? Yes. 575 01:30:13,750 --> 01:30:18,667 Sometimes it seems we walk over them, so I step away. 576 01:30:21,750 --> 01:30:28,583 There are always souls who wander, seeking a place, a sweet, noble thought. 577 01:30:31,792 --> 01:30:34,917 Many resisted, many. 578 01:30:35,958 --> 01:30:40,375 In silence, in a word, in a smile. 579 01:30:42,042 --> 01:30:45,250 Sometimes, a small gesture is all it takes to say "no". 580 01:30:46,708 --> 01:30:50,000 I think of my father who announced his choice. 581 01:30:51,250 --> 01:30:53,875 Sometimes, silence is a scream. 582 01:31:14,542 --> 01:31:18,458 Mourning is difficult, there is no end to the burial. 583 01:31:20,333 --> 01:31:22,667 There are no more cattle cars. 584 01:31:23,750 --> 01:31:26,792 There are no more slogans, no more young guards in black. 585 01:31:28,000 --> 01:31:30,083 There is the blood-trenched earth. 586 01:31:30,875 --> 01:31:32,833 Their flesh is mine, 587 01:31:33,667 --> 01:31:35,792 so we are together. 588 01:31:38,500 --> 01:31:42,750 There are many things that man should not see or know. 589 01:31:44,000 --> 01:31:47,833 Should he see them, he'd be better of dying. 590 01:31:49,708 --> 01:31:53,083 But should any of us see or know these things, 591 01:31:53,917 --> 01:31:56,250 then he must live to tell of them. 592 01:31:59,000 --> 01:32:02,750 Every morning I worked over that pit, 593 01:32:04,167 --> 01:32:06,542 my shovel hit bones and heads. 594 01:32:07,417 --> 01:32:09,917 As for dirt, there is never enough. 595 01:32:11,708 --> 01:32:15,875 It's mee they will kill. Or maybe they already have. 596 01:32:18,250 --> 01:32:21,042 Of course I haven't found the missing picture, 597 01:32:22,042 --> 01:32:24,333 I looked for it, in vain. 598 01:32:27,667 --> 01:32:31,083 A political film should unearth what it invented. 599 01:32:32,250 --> 01:32:37,583 And so, I make this picture, I look at it, I cherish it 600 01:32:38,792 --> 01:32:41,417 I hold it in my hand like a beloved face. 601 01:32:42,750 --> 01:32:46,042 This missing picture, I now hand over to you 602 01:32:47,043 --> 01:32:49,743 so that it never ceases to seek us out.