IMDb RATING
7.3/10
3.5K
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Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.
- Director
- Writers
- Stars
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 12 wins & 16 nominations total
Randal Douc
- Narrator
- (voice)
Jean-Baptiste Phou
- Narrator
- (English version)
- (voice)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOfficial submission of Cambodia to the Oscars 2014 best foreign language film category.
- Quotes
[It's not a picture of loved ones i seek, i want to touch them, their voices are missing, so i wont tell. I want to leave it all, leave my language, my country in vain and my childhood returns. Now it's the boy who seeks me out, i see him, he wants to speak to me but words are hard to find]
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Oscars (2014)
- SoundtracksWe Were Staring at the Sky
Composed by Marc Marder
Co-Edition JBA Production/Boosey and Hawkes Music Publ LTD
© JBA Production
Featured review
Unique portrayal of a human holocaust
History, it is said, is written by the victors. But sometimes, it is the victims - or more accurately, the survivors - who get to do the writing. That is the case with Rithy Panh, a Cambodian who survived the horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Panh was a mere child when he suffered the loss of his parents and siblings in the various grueling work camps to which they had been consigned. As an adult, Panh went on to become a documentary filmmaker dedicated to telling his story to the world. It was a purge aimed mainly at the intelligentsia of Cambodian society - the well-off and educated - who posed the greatest threat to the regime's vision of a collectivist agrarian utopia.
Where, Panh asks, are all the pictures of children starving, of people being worked into the grave that more accurately portray the reality of this 20th Century holocaust? Somehow, those were not recorded and preserved for posterity. Instead, we get a series of grainy propaganda images - of workers seemingly happy in their toil, of leaders of the revolution inspiring the masses with their promises of a Communist paradise - that were officially sanctioned by the government. So Panh has taken it upon himself to provide the "missing" pictures the Pol Pot regime failed to provide to the world.
The Oscar-nominated documentary "The Missing Picture" is a stark, haunting illustration of what life was like under Pol Pot's brutal dictatorship. The director alternates between grainy, mostly black-and- white footage taken at the time and diorama-style re-creations using strategically arranged and intricately carved clay figurines. These frozen, expressionless figures, with their searching, unblinking eyes, lift the suffering that the actual people endured to a near-surreal level, while the wistful, soft-spoken narration by Jean-Baptiste Phou echoes the human tragedy at the core. Indeed, the approach Panh has taken manages to personalize a holocaust that, given its enormous breadth and scope - an estimated one to three million people died under the regime - would otherwise be incomprehensible to the human mind. "The Missing Picture," by "going small," paradoxically helps us to see the tragedy writ large.
Where, Panh asks, are all the pictures of children starving, of people being worked into the grave that more accurately portray the reality of this 20th Century holocaust? Somehow, those were not recorded and preserved for posterity. Instead, we get a series of grainy propaganda images - of workers seemingly happy in their toil, of leaders of the revolution inspiring the masses with their promises of a Communist paradise - that were officially sanctioned by the government. So Panh has taken it upon himself to provide the "missing" pictures the Pol Pot regime failed to provide to the world.
The Oscar-nominated documentary "The Missing Picture" is a stark, haunting illustration of what life was like under Pol Pot's brutal dictatorship. The director alternates between grainy, mostly black-and- white footage taken at the time and diorama-style re-creations using strategically arranged and intricately carved clay figurines. These frozen, expressionless figures, with their searching, unblinking eyes, lift the suffering that the actual people endured to a near-surreal level, while the wistful, soft-spoken narration by Jean-Baptiste Phou echoes the human tragedy at the core. Indeed, the approach Panh has taken manages to personalize a holocaust that, given its enormous breadth and scope - an estimated one to three million people died under the regime - would otherwise be incomprehensible to the human mind. "The Missing Picture," by "going small," paradoxically helps us to see the tragedy writ large.
helpful•33
- Buddy-51
- Aug 19, 2014
- How long is The Missing Picture?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- 遺失的映像
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $52,164
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,148
- Mar 23, 2014
- Gross worldwide
- $78,097
- Runtime1 hour 32 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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