Writer, Lida Chan, Guillaume Suon; produced by Rithy Panh. New York: Women Make Movies, 2012. 1 DVD (58 min.) US$350.00, Universities, Colleges & Institutions; US$125.00, Rental; US$89.00, K-12, Public Libraries & Select Groups. In Khmer, subtitled in English. Url: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c849.shtml.
Shot in Pursat Province, Cambodia between 2010 and 2012, Red Wedding explores one of the forced marriages of more than 250,000 women during Khmer Rouge rule (1975–1979). Interspersed with film footage and songs from the period, it is at times eerie in its flashbacks. The documentary follows the struggle of 48-year-old Sochan Pen who, at the age of sixteen, was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge soldier and was subsequently raped. Early on, the film displays the warm friendship of Chhean and Sochan, two adult women, bordering on middle-age, roughhousing.
But once the laughter dies down, Sochan tells us, “I feel sorry for my body. I hate my ex-husband. I want to cut off the parts of my body that he touched at that time.” Sochan remarries after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has six kids, but her husband is killed and leaves her to feed them.
The Khmer Rouge had a policy of population growth; part of this can be explained by the idea that to fight neighbouring Vietnam, Democratic Kampuchea would need people (relaying Khmer Rouge wishful thinking, Ben Kiernan once lectured that the Khmer Rouge even argued that if one Cambodian could kill ten Vietnamese, Democratic Kampuchea could wipe out Vietnam). The film has an audio clip from a Khmer Rouge broadcast translated as follows: “The chief of the Community Party of Kampuchea gave a speech… [Pol Pot’s voice:] Today our country is small and sparsely populated. The country has only eight million inhabitants. We’re still far from the potential of our country. In the coming ten years, we will need twenty million Cambodians. We have no reason to reduce the number of our people or to maintain it. Our goal is to increase the number of people as soon as possible.”
Sochan’s story is emblematic of those women forced to marry men they did not know or love. Sochan suffered multiple rapes—a form of torture—and today suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She can’t sleep and has headaches.
When Sochan and her friend are in a lotus pond harvesting, the scene is a metaphor for the lotus which grows in muddy water but is fragrant and beautiful, embodying the resilience that these women represent. What she wants to know, in her own words is the following, and she hopes the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia can produce answers:
“Why I was forced to marry…
Why the spies had to watch us…
Why after starving me the Khmer Rouge wanted to kill me.
And why I was forced to marry…if after the marriage the couples couldn’t stay together. Whether we got along or not, we were killed.”
If viewers watching expect closure, they will be disappointed; there appears to be no rhyme or reason. When Sochan questions those individuals responsible for her own forced marriage and suffering, they deny any knowledge. It’s a hall of mirrors. A character named Oeum blames the district chief. Then when the district chief is interviewed by Sochan, he denies being a district chief. He asks: “Do you have any proof?” The minimalist filmmaking style doesn’t let us understand who is in front of us at any given moment, which can be confusing.
The sister of Sochan’s ex-husband is more forthcoming. She sheds some light, but doesn’t know much. She concedes that “If we behaved correctly, we lived. Otherwise we died.” Of course that is an observation of life under Khmer Rouge rule, but it provides no satisfaction.
At times, the film feels as if the conversation is guided/scripted, but without an interviewer. It has a narrative film feel, but is a documentary. The directors, Chan and Suon, protégés of legendary Franco-Khmer filmmaker Rithy Panh, are probably asking questions. The movie has a very different atmosphere from “Enemies of the People,” which I have also reviewed. There is no smoking gun. No Nuon Chea character explaining that people were killed because they were enemies of the people. People were forced to marry because, apparently, the Khmer Rouge needed more people—but without food you aren’t going to have child-bearing mothers. Moreover, as Sochan attests, the newlyweds were killed whether or not they got along! Actually, we learn later that if they didn’t get along by the third night, they’d kill you because you were not going to procreate.
Men do come out looking pretty bad, except for one hero: Sochan’s uncle, who rescues and helps her during her ordeal with her ex-husband.
The movie ends with Sochan’s daughter getting married; it’s a parallel to Sochan’s own experience and a happy contrast. Many survivors of Pol Pot time—as the period is known for many—especially those who did not have a proper marriage, can do right for themselves through their children’s marriage. When I first returned to Cambodia in 1996, after 20 years away, I often saw excessive food ordering in restaurants as a kind of kneejerk reaction to the starvation felt during the Khmer Rouge period—a kind of “we will never be for want” testament. Marriage is perhaps another expression of this need to undo the mistakes of the past. Sochan sits her daughters down to tell them about her own forced marriage experience, but any remedy to the lack of justice for Cambodia’s past (and present) will need to wait for the next generation.
Sophal Ear
Occidental College, Los Angeles, USA
pp. 760-761