The Missing Picture

Beoordelingen & Recensies

Eleanor Thompson

leaves me speechless

historian of breakfast

What does this achieve that archival footage does not? The power of the director's retelling, perhaps - these have a kind of truth that comes from recollection rather than recorded image. It also lends to the sheer monotony of life under the Khmer Rouge - endless rows of workers ploughing away at dull, pale earth. Replicability and disposability - would we notice if the figures were changed in every shot?

Clara Josephine Helbig

a heartbreaking poetic catharsis - Rithy Panh has formed an important personal testimony to the horrors of totalitarianism.

Jack

A beautifully articulated memory of resistance by Panh and a powerful testimony of his family's tragedy. The clay-model narrative makes for an interesting dynamic; one that constantly conflicts with you in its emptiness and simplicity. An interesting tangent was Panh's comments on the medium of film and its relationship with truthfulness.

Sarah Pietsch

Excellent film. Beautifully crafted, both the figures and the backgrounds. The beauty makes it watchable, it’s a harrowing but important story.

lesminho

8/10

Kelvin Thompson

3-4. Interesting; I don't think I've ever seen a documentary where a fictionalized figure of the creator was used as a way of actualizing the creator's experiences to themselves. I also think it's really valuable as far as putting a human face to the people who suffered at the hands of Pol Pot. Echoing one of the film's final images, I hope the director was able to lay some of his childhood pain to rest.

Noli Manaig

That Rithy Panh's stand-in narrates in French can throw you off. He sounds like a Parisian rather than a French-educated Cambodian. Maybe there's a version in Khmer out there, otherwise this co-production smacks of the rehabilitation of France in these parts of Southeast Asia, as if it were payback for the French debacle in Vietnam, as if to say there are worse things -- i.e. Communism -- than colonialism.

Andrew Miller

I thought of the director's own S21 doc, as well as a very different film that uses miniatures to represent trauma: Marwencol.

misu

émouvant récit ! **2015

ShawnD

Impossible to describe, impossible to forget.

wilted

The subject matter was interesting and evoked an emotional response but the story was told in a very dull, aimless way. Unfortunately the unique clay figure used as visuals were unable to make up for this.

Matt Kovar

Amazing, moving, and heartbreaking. The really cute clay figures and landscape made a stark contrast to the subject matter, making the film all the more raw.

Julian Renard

"Are we seeking memories, or are memories seeking us?" That's pretty much the question raised by this mind blowing documentary. Rithy Panh embraces his subjectivity and delivers a poignant testimony of Pol Pot's totalitarian regime, only 40 years ago. No history skills needed to enjoy the experience, go for it.

Max Seqgar

The more one learns about the Khmer Rouge, the more horrifying the story gets.

Clay_Carter

This film is form equals function brilliance. The diorama form functions to objectify our understanding. Telling the story with literal objects allows the film to see suffering and ideological oppression and the dehumanizing gaze of the oppressor simultaneously. The personal essay which functions as the narration is also exemplary in combining historical fact and first-hand memory into a cogent, harrowing thought.

Ronald Sanderson

For this filmmaker to have suffered and kept such an objective point of view, is in my opinion nothing short of incredible. A beautiful film, something one would probably want to see twice.

Lexi Bass

What can you even say about this film? Beautiful delicate, genuine, honest, strong. Amazing. Devastating.

yasdnil

I feel terrible giving such a poor review to a movie with such an important topic, but...ugh. Nothing was done to keep the audience's attention - it was the film equivalent of a college professor speaking in monotone for a lecture. I wish I could say something good about it, but nothing was memorable enough.

Kadjavsi

massive effort put into this movie and a very special concept but unfortunately it made it very boring and slow

Daniel S.

How not to be moved by this reconstruction of the life during the Pol Pot years? When collectivism and a biased understanding of some of the thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau meet, the result is disastrous. Highly recommended.

CarlosEsquives

Panh nuevamente invita a la reflexión a medida que acude a la memoria, no solamente la humana, sino también la fílmica, aquella que en tiempos de terror se fue fabricando con el fin de glorificar un discurso político. He ahí lo que Orson Welles afirmaba en F for fake, el cine como mecánica del engaño, o, como lo diría el mismo Panh, la imagen que está ausente, aquella que parece ser pero no es http://bit.ly/1w1z6dA

Fabio

Creative, beautiful and important.

nein

The best part of it is original footage. I liked the figures but got tired of it in the end.