Sundance Film Review: Enemies of the People

By Dan Nailen

01/23/10

via CAAI News Media

Thet Sambeth (pictured left) is a Cambodian newspaper journalist whose father was murdered by the Khmer Rouge in 1974, and whose mother was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge militiaman two years later.

For a decade, Sambeth spent his free time journeying into the notorious "killing fields" of his home country to try and understand why so many of Cambodia's people were murdered. The result of that work is Enemies of the People, which Sambeth co-directed and produced with Rob Lemkin.

The film revolves around the relationship Sambeth established with Nuon Chea, aka "Brother Number Two" (pictured below with Sambeth) and dictator Pol Pot's right-hand man. It took Sambeth years of gaining Chea's trust before he opened up and admitted that he and Pol Pot had plotted the killings as a means of defending their communist vision from "enemies of the people." Chea doesn't ever express remorse for the program he calls the "solution," but he does to Sambeth directly when the reporter tells the old man about his own family's relationship with the Khmer Rouge.

Sambeth also tracks down several of the Khmer Rouge's foot soldiers, mostly peasants and farmers who were simply "following orders" when they slit the throats of their neighbors and buried them in mass graves. It's chilling to watch one of the men graphically illustrate how he would kill his victims, and it's intriguing to see how each of these murderers deals with what they've done all these years later.

Enemies of the People could prove to be an important historical document for decades to come. Sambeth kept his recorded conversations with Nuon Chea under lock and key for years, in fear they'd be confiscated and used as evidence in a trial. Indeed, the film ends with Nuon Chea's arrest by a joint force of the United Nations and Cambodia. He's charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as genocide, and his trial is slated, for now, for 2011.

Considering Sambeth has the first admittance by Brother Number Two of what he and Pol Pot instigated, it could be a quick trial.

Enemies of the People will screen:

Sunday, Jan. 24, at 9 p.m. at Park City's Holiday Village IV

Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 11:30 p.m. at Park City's Library Center Theatre

Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 9:45 p.m. at Salt Lake City's Broadway Cinemas

Friday, Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. at Park City's Egyptian Theatre