'Enemies of the People': One man's quest for truth about Cambodia's 'killing fields'

Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of Pol Pot, appears in "Enemies of the People."

A movie review of "Enemies of the People," an intensely personal documentary that follows journalist Thet Sambath as he seeks the truth about the mass killings from 1975 to 1979 at the hands of Cambodia's Communist Khmer Rouge government.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

By Stephen Holden

The New York Times

'Enemies of the People,' a documentary directed by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, from a screenplay by Lemkin. 94 minutes. In English and Khmer, with English subtitles. Not rated; for mature audiences. Northwest Film Forum, through Thursday.

This review bears no star rating because The New York Times does not provide such ratings with reviews.

"Some say that almost two million people died in the killing fields," declares Thet Sambath, a polite, soft-spoken Cambodian journalist for The Phnom Penh Post, in the opening moments of the documentary "Enemies of the People." He adds, "Nobody understands why so many people were killed at that time."

Thus begins this intensely personal film, undertaken at some risk, in which Sambath seeks the truth about the mass killings from 1975 to 1979 at the hands of Cambodia's Communist Khmer Rouge government, which was responsible for the deaths of nearly a quarter of the country's population.

The heart of the film, a collaboration by Sambath and British documentarian Rob Lemkin, consists of meticulously cataloged interviews conducted during nearly a decade with perpetrators of the mass execution, many of them rural farmers. As they open up and matter-of-factly describe horrific acts, the camera scours their weather-beaten faces.

"Enemies of the People" is extraordinary on several fronts. Sambath's father and brother were slain by Khmer Rouge militants, and his mother died in childbirth after her forced marriage to a militiaman. Yet as Sambath gently coaxes peasants to confess to atrocities, there is not a shred of bitterness in his questioning. At times, Sambath suggests a one-man Cambodian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead of affixing blame, he seeks the healing power of confession.

"Enemies of the People" is another disquieting testament to the fact that ordinary individuals under extreme pressure will carry out the most monstrous crimes. If they hadn't followed the orders of superiors, they say, they themselves would have been killed. One farmer, a Buddhist who believes in reincarnation, expresses his tormented certainty that it will be many lifetimes before he returns in human form.

The film's journalistic coup is Sambath's persuasion of Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of Pol Pot (the Cambodian Communist leader who died in 1998), to explain what happened. Chea, also known as Brother No. 2, is a proud, gaunt man in his 80s. Sambath visited him regularly for three years before he agreed to tell the truth.

"Enemies of the People" reserves its biggest emotional punch for the end of the film, when Sambath, who has lied to Chea about the fate of his own family, finally tells him about their loss.

As the final interviews with Chea were conducted, he and other high-level Khmer Rouge officials were waiting to be arrested for war crimes and genocide by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a United Nations-backed tribunal. Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, the head of the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Chea will be the tribunal's second case.