Enemies of the People Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, UK / Cambodia, 2009, 93 minutes
Sunday, May 9 | 6:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
On September 19, 2007, Nuon Chea (known as Brother Number Two, second in command to Pol Pot in the Khmer Rouge) was arrested and charged with war crimes. For more than five years prior to Chea’s arrest, a journalist named Thet Sambath had been visiting the old man, trying to understand how the Khmer Rouge had decided to kill more than two million Cambodians, the so-called “Enemies of the People.” Among the millions lost to the killing fields were most of the members of Thet Sambath’s own family.
Sambath and Rob Lemkin’s film bears remarkable witness to one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century by going straight to the people who ordered the killing done and to those who actually carried out the unspeakable level of atrocity. Against the powerful beauty of the Cambodian countryside, Thet interviews the men who were charged with murdering countless men, women and children. Mostly illiterate farmers and ordinary foot-soldiers, they helped turn their own country into a virtual Golgotha, filled with unmarked mass graves.
There is a startling immediacy to this film that is almost difficult to endure at times. As Thet listens carefully and impassively to stories of people begging for their lives and the stench of blood seeping into one man’s hands, the lingering traces of these men’s actions emerge in their haunted eyes. The scope of what took place in the killing fields has long eluded understanding simply because it is too large and too terrible to contemplate. Here is where Thet Sambath does something remarkable: by rendering the events of history on a personal, even intimate scale, he makes Cambodia’s darkest horror somehow, if not more bearable, at least less overwhelming. In an interview about the film’s intent Sambath explained: “Some may say no good can come from talking to killers and dwelling on past horror, but I say these people have sacrificed a lot to tell the truth. In daring to confess they have done good, perhaps the only good thing left. They and all the killers like them must be part of the process of reconciliation if my country is to move forward.”
Directors’ biographies
Thet Sambath is widely regarded as one of Cambodia’s best investigative reporters and his stories have been syndicated all over the world. Since 1994 he has worked as producer, translator and camera operator for many world broadcasting organisations including BBC, WGBH Frontline, NHK and NBC. In 2002 Sambath travelled to the US on a Jefferson Scholarship.
Rob Lemkin is the founder and director of Old Street Films. He has produced and directed over 50 documentaries for BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Sky, The History Channel (US) and Arts & Entertainment. Lemkin has won numerous awards in Britain and abroad.
