Written by Kelcie Moseley
The Argonaut (U. of Idaho newspaper)
Imagine yourself at 16 — barely settling into middle school or high school and oblivious to most of the world around you. Now imagine you were told you were being given a recording contract with a fairly well-known record label, and you’d be able to do what you always dreamed of doing: singing. Life is going well, and people begin to recognize you for your beauty and your voice. Then suddenly a man falls in love with you, but not just any man — a much older, powerful man, one who is important and noticeable throughout the country. And with that power, he coerces you into staying with him, though you do not love him. He threatens you if you say you want to leave and keeps a gun around to make sure you don’t try. So you stay.
But it’s not long before you find out he’s a married man. And one day, with no warning, his wife — whom you’ve never met — grabs you on the street by the hair, beats you and throws a liter of acid over your face and body.
The life you knew is instantly taken away, and the people who were responsible are never brought to justice.
This is the story of Tat Marina, a Cambodian woman who was allegedly attacked by Undersecretary of State Svay Sitha’s wife in 1999. Ten years and 25 surgeries later, Marina’s appearance is still a shadow of her former self. She was lucky enough to be granted juvenile amnesty in the U.S. after she was attacked, but every morning she literally draws most of her features onto her face in eyeliner, eyebrow pencil and lip liner.
Marina wears hoods to cover her face in public, and she lives in a constant state of fear for her family, who were still living in Cambodia at the time of the film, and were threatened many times by Sitha.
“Finding Face” does not play soft with its audience. Most of the film speaks for itself through Marina’s testimonial, in addition to her family’s, but the filmmakers also let the audience watch as Marina’s family sees her on film for the first time since she was attacked. Their reaction to her appearance — which they had assumed would be closer to her former self — is one of the most heartbreaking moments of the film.
Documentaries like this one are vitally important to see, even if it’s hard to watch. Not only does it illustrate the horror Marina and her family went through, but it also profiles several other women who were attacked with acid and were not as lucky as Marina.
Their appearances are much worse than hers, but their courage is astounding. One woman whose eyes are sealed shut and has burns across her face and down her neck said she actually feels more comfortable with herself than she did before she was attacked. She said she wants people to see what happened to her to raise awareness about the growing problem of acid attacks.
“Finding Face” brings this disturbing crime that is on the rise into harsh focus. They point out the highest rates of acid attacks are in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom and the U.S. — proving this is not just a third-world country issue.
The film accomplishes everything it set out to do and more – getting people talking about an issue largely ignored before, telling a powerful story of injustice, human rights violations and gender-based violence.
“Finding Face” is a film the viewer will never forget.
But it’s not long before you find out he’s a married man. And one day, with no warning, his wife — whom you’ve never met — grabs you on the street by the hair, beats you and throws a liter of acid over your face and body.
The life you knew is instantly taken away, and the people who were responsible are never brought to justice.
This is the story of Tat Marina, a Cambodian woman who was allegedly attacked by Undersecretary of State Svay Sitha’s wife in 1999. Ten years and 25 surgeries later, Marina’s appearance is still a shadow of her former self. She was lucky enough to be granted juvenile amnesty in the U.S. after she was attacked, but every morning she literally draws most of her features onto her face in eyeliner, eyebrow pencil and lip liner.
Marina wears hoods to cover her face in public, and she lives in a constant state of fear for her family, who were still living in Cambodia at the time of the film, and were threatened many times by Sitha.
“Finding Face” does not play soft with its audience. Most of the film speaks for itself through Marina’s testimonial, in addition to her family’s, but the filmmakers also let the audience watch as Marina’s family sees her on film for the first time since she was attacked. Their reaction to her appearance — which they had assumed would be closer to her former self — is one of the most heartbreaking moments of the film.
Documentaries like this one are vitally important to see, even if it’s hard to watch. Not only does it illustrate the horror Marina and her family went through, but it also profiles several other women who were attacked with acid and were not as lucky as Marina.
Their appearances are much worse than hers, but their courage is astounding. One woman whose eyes are sealed shut and has burns across her face and down her neck said she actually feels more comfortable with herself than she did before she was attacked. She said she wants people to see what happened to her to raise awareness about the growing problem of acid attacks.
“Finding Face” brings this disturbing crime that is on the rise into harsh focus. They point out the highest rates of acid attacks are in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom and the U.S. — proving this is not just a third-world country issue.
The film accomplishes everything it set out to do and more – getting people talking about an issue largely ignored before, telling a powerful story of injustice, human rights violations and gender-based violence.
“Finding Face” is a film the viewer will never forget.
8 comments:
Teach your kids there is no free lunch.It is sad, there are such a human's animals exist.
Hungers, greeds and studity will do it.
The incompetent government will lead traumas such as this....How sad. Hopefully, this guy will burn in hell..
I meanted to say lead to....
Cambodians are so unfortunate that they cannot find any reasonable and reasonably and comparatively good enough leaders to lead them since 1975.
The mentality of the Cambodian leaders has never changed for the last several years. They are in power not to serve the interests of the people they profess to love and work for. It is always about themselves. In their minds they do not belong to Cambodia, but the country belongs to them; in other words it is theirs to do whatever they want to.
Free education for all the younger generation is a must, but the problem and the challenge is how to provide such a necessary commodity to the young Cambodians of all economic status in the environment of such pervasive corruption and selfishness.
Cambodia can only change for the better with the newer and better educated population. It won't change at the present time, which is very sad indeed!
It is my sincere hope that changes will come sooner for the survival of this beautiful country.
Anet Khmer
remember, we all co-dependent, meaning both men and women needs each other, ok. there's no such thing as inferior status when it comes to the law, ok! help fight for khmer women's right! khmer women could be your mother, your sister, your daughter, your aunt, your grandmother, your parliamentarian, your lawmakers, your doctor, your lawyer, your friends and all that good things, ok! let's not forget that, really! god bless khmer women.
Most old generations have inherited the king's bad behaviour where he can have as many wives as he pleases and did not allow women and children to have a say what so ever, which is wrong (it should be one husband and one wife-tam bro pey ney khmer, tia sdach min ban tver tam pong, doch snas tver yerng mdach?). Back then in the 1940s, mum told me that most parents did not allow their daughters to go to school and that if they know too much they will be bad and so on. So, this is one of the reasons why khmer men like to devalue their women,children and abuse them at the end of the day. However,now that we are living in the 21st century, hopefully our new generations are able to think differently from those of past. In addition, it is better to have a country full of educated people then not to have. being educated means that you can see things more clearly about whatis going in the world as well as knowing where to go about it, otherwise, you would see yourself in a lost world including being stressed and depressed about it. Educated people see things differently from those who are not, basically because they have a non-judgemental atittudes but more toward acceptant etc. Therefore, in this case all medias such as TV, newspapers, radio need to promote education for our women and children in general as well as promoting equality, whether you are a man, a woman or a child! you need to treasure each other for we really do't know "what will happen tomorrow?" you might not see each other again who knows. Anyway,love you guys, May God bless Khmer nation and its country.cheers
correction; I mean doch schnas tver yaing mdach touw?...
Good comments here...
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