
Between 1975 and 1979, the communist inspired Khmer Rouge waged a campaign of terror and mass murder on Cambodia's population. Up to 1.7 mill. Cambodians lost their lives to famine, hard labor and murder as the urban population was forced into the countryside to fulfill the Khmer Rouge's dream of an agrarian utopia. In the former Security Prison 21 (code-named "S21"), which was once a high school and is today the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, director Rithy Panh brings two of t... (Full plot summary below)
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Between 1975 and 1979, the communist inspired Khmer Rouge waged a campaign of terror and mass murder on Cambodia's population. Up to 1.7 mill. Cambodians lost their lives to famine, hard labor and murder as the urban population was forced into the countryside to fulfill the Khmer Rouge's dream of an agrarian utopia. In the former Security Prison 21 (code-named "S21"), which was once a high school and is today the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, director Rithy Panh brings two of the few survivors back to discuss what happened there between 1975 and 1979. Painter Vann Nath survived by chance and didn't suffer the same fate as 17,000 other men, women and children who were taken there, tortured and their so-called 'crimes' meticulously documented to justify their execution. The ex-Khmer Rouge guards respond to Nath's questions with excuses, chilling stoicism or apparent remorse as they recount the atrocities they committed at ages as young as 12 years old. To escape torture, the prisoners would confess to anything, and often denounce everyone they knew - though their final sentence was always death.
Leave your thoughts about S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.
| Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittThe result is a history lesson both invaluable and horrific. |
| OffoffoffJoshua TanzerHow often do you get the chance to stare directly into the face of evil? S21 gives you that chance, and what do you know - evil's face looks just like everybody else's. |
| Dallas Morning NewsChris VognarA haunting look at the historical amnesia that envelops countries or regimes after officially sanctioned barbarism. |
| Filmcritic.comChris Barsanti...an imperfectly realized yet nevertheless important look at the depths to which humanity can sink all too easily. |
| Salt Lake TribuneSean P. MeansPanh ... simply lets his subjects tell the story, and the words create an unrelenting and often hard-to-take portrait of a national despair. |
| Capital Times (Madison, WI)Rob ThomasA necessary and haunting examination of how corrupt systems can create corrupt individuals to serve them. |
| Nitrate OnlineElias SavadaIt is not a film-which unflinchingly captures a still festering wound on humanity-you are likely to forget. |
| Washington PostDesson ThomsonA modest but nonetheless devastating documentary. |
| NewsdayJan StuartServes as a potent and necessary reminder of how easily war can defeat the humanity of the good and the well-intentioned. |
| BBC.comJamie RussellA chilling reminder of man's capacity for brutality. |