LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

freebird-64 I got to see this film at a special screening at the Alliance France in Manila, the French embassy's cultural center. Many of the small audience in the screening room (the copy screened was a DVD) did not bother to finish the film.For myself, I found the film a flawed but powerful experience. One major flaw is, as other reviewers have pointed out, its cold opening. In other words, it assumes you already know what S-21 is and what the Khmer Rouge are. Without this valuable background information, which the documentary does not provide, the viewers may be lost at first.It is also kind of dry, since the movie takes place only within the walls of S-21, involving only the few survivors of the prison and some of their former jailers. Essentially they spent the entire film talking. There is no attempt on the part of the director to make it more cinematic.However, the patient viewer will soon find him or herself immersed in the horrors of the Khmer Rouge as detail after detail of the atrocities committed in the prison emerge. The handful of survivors go through mementos of the prison, including logbooks detailing the tortures committed against inmates, along with some of those who worked in the prison, including a guard and a doctor. The question the survivors constantly ask their former jailers is: How? How could you do these things? And they have no answers.The most chilling scenes in the film involve a former prison guard recreating in an empty cell the routine he took with the prisoners, bringing them food, water or a container to pee in, threatening them with a beating if they don't go to sleep or cry too loudly. Its throughly disturbing to see, even if there are no actual prisoners there.S-21 is not for everybody. But if you're already familiar with the Khmer Roune and this part of Cambodian history, the documentary may be worth watching to deepen your understanding of this dark period of history.

cobram-1 I have read the other comments on here and think that many people missed the point. This documentary illustrated the banality of evil very powerfully; it did not preach or try to shove the makers' opinion down the viewers' throat, like SO many other so-called documentaries do. This is not one of those "documentaries" which show edited footage and historical footage as a mere backdrop to put forth someone's opinion. That's what made it so powerful, to see the people who committed this incomprehensible evil and those that suffered it asking their own questions, trying to make sense of it all, trying to justify it, analyzing their roles in real time as the cameras roll. It was very evident that this was the first time many of them had questioned themselves on what they had done. The repetitive re-enactment and explanation of the guard's day to day activities were horrific in their normality. Even after all these years, after all that's happened, these men had no qualms about showing the world their routines, making it obvious that they don't equate their actions directly to the effects it had on their fellow country men and women. One has to remember that the guards were brain washed and indoctrinated by the communists at a very young age. This can be directly equated with what's happening in the world today with militant Islam. They're creating their own amoral killers and fanatics by indoctrinating and brain washing children. If nothing else, this documentary shows how once indoctrinated at a young age with fanatical ideology, all that remains for the rest of that persons life is an empty shell incapable of comprehending basic humanity.

Dantès This film had so much potential, but just didn't get it done.The first, really glaring problem is the opening that has a very incomplete and poorly-explained history of how the Khmer Rouge came to power. I found it confusing, and I know the history. They make the mistake of assuming people already know what happened there.S21 has such a horrifying history, a place where humanity reached its nadir, but the film really just scratches the surface.One angle that goes almost completely unexplored is the loss/lack of humanity on both sides. The destruction of the prisoners is well-covered, but the guards are given a mostly one-dimensional role, and their own situation is barely considered, aside from overly long reenactments of how they would conduct themselves toward the prisoners.Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of S21, talks to the guards who are pretty close-mouthed and unwilling/unable to defend themselves. One should remember that they were largely 12 or 13 year-olds, selected at that age because they could be easily manipulated and indoctrinated, or they did what they did because they feared for their own lives. Seeing a survivor talk to the guards is very interesting, but they also needed someone neutral, as Vann has no patience for their explanations. Vann laments the loss of humanity of the prisoners, but does not consider that it existed on both sides.Many of the things the guards did would be so anathema to human nature, be so morally repugnant, that I don't think (or like to believe) that most people would do them unless they fear for their lives, or could not really grasp what they were doing.Granted, many Khmer Rouge knew exactly what was going on, and they condoned torture and murder. If one ever goes to S21 and sees the mug shots on the wall, with men, women, children, even infants looking back at you with heartbreaking fear and hopelessness, you cannot help but hate those who killed them. But, if this film also looked at those who did it and why, it would have been much more effective.On the whole, it's a very disappointing experience. There's so much to talk about, and more horror than you can really wrap your mind around, but the film doesn't help you appreciate this.

gb_mpls Before my recent visit to Cambodia which included a short tour of S21, I did some reading on the prison and the complex events that led to its development and operation during the Democratic Kampuchea (Pol Pot) regime. This movie did a remarkable job filling in my sense of S21 that was not otherwise possible to experience through reading or even touring the prison. For example, interviews with two of the only seven survivors out of over 14,000 prisoners detained and killed at S21 was remarkable by itself as was the opening sequence of a former guard discussing the morality of his role with parents who no doubt felt the full brunt of the Khmer Rouge's brutality, yet survived.Seeing details such as the private cells, photography apparatus, the typewriters that clacked away to record prisoners' tortured confessions, and the former guards' convincing reenactment of their job as teenage guards at this grisly place was at the same time deeply disturbing and satisfying in improving my understanding of this total institution. The very instruments of dehumanization - ammunition buckets used for toilets, the bare tile floors prisoners were shackled to between interrogations and torture, the windows open to mosquitoes and vermin allowed to feast on the prisoners - are both stark and subtle in their presentation.Those who expect anything more than a rudimentary understanding of this infamous killing machine may be disappointed. Seeing this movie was at least as valuable as seeing the prison in person. I especially recommend it for anyone who has visited S21 or expects to visit Cambodia.