Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell
Duch, le maître des forges de l'enfer
France, Cambodia
2011
103 Min
Color
1.85:1
Khmer
Synopsis
Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime caused the death of some 1.8 million people, representing one-quarter of the population of Cambodia.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was in charge at M13, a Khmer Rouge-controlled prison, for four years before being appointed by the Angkar (“the Organisation”, a faceless and omnipresent entity which reigned unopposed over the destiny of an entire people) to the S21 centre in Phnom Penh. As party secretary at S21, he commanded from 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge killing machine in which at least 12,380 people perished, according to the remaining archives. But how many others disappeared, “crushed and reduced to dust”, with no trace of them ever being found?
In 2009, Kaing Guek Eav aka Duch became the first leader of the Khmer Rouge organisation to be brought before an international criminal justice court.
Duch reveals here how he considers that he fully carried out his mission, and the reasons which led him to command M13 and then S21:
- His faith in the ideology of the Angkar
- His obsession with work well done, his cult of hierarchy and his eagerness to gain the approval of his superiors.
- His passion for power, discipline and organisation.
- His talents as a teacher, eager to train perfect workmen to carry out of a collective and silent crime.
- His instinct for survival, his regrets, and his fear of death.
Rithy Panh records his unadorned words, without any trimmings, in the isolation of a face-to-face encounter. At the same time, he sets it into perspective with archive pictures and eye-witness accounts of survivors. As the narrative unfolds, the infernal machine of a system of destruction of humanity implacably emerges, through a manic description of the minutiae of its mechanisms. –Cannes Film Festival
Director
Rithy Panh
Rithy Panh was born in Phnom Penh. His father was a school teacher and inspector of primary schools.
His family and other residents were expelled from the Cambodian capital in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge. Rithy’s family suffered under the regime, and after he saw his parents, siblings and other relatives die of overwork or malnutrition, Rithy escaped to Thailand in 1979, where he lived for a time in a refugee camp at Mairut.
Eventually, he made his way to Paris, France. It was while he was attending vocational school to learn carpentry that he was handed a video camera during a party that he become interested in filmmaking. He went on to graduate from the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute for the Advanced Cinematographic Studies). He returned to Cambodia in 1990, while still using Paris as a home base.
His first documentary feature film, Site 2, about a family of Cambodian refugees in a camp on the Thai-Cambodian border in the 1980s, was awarded… read more
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Wrapping Cannes 2011. Classics and Special Screenings
By David Hudson on June 2, 2011
This final wrap comes with a reminder that all our reviews, interviews and coverage of the coverage is indexed right here. "Throughout her
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