The Miserable Life of Cambodians (Movie Review Sample)

The Miserable Life of Cambodians
Why do the deaths of two million people in Cambodia qualify as a genocide? Do the definitions of genocide and crimes against humanity suit the situation?
Several factors tied to the death of two million people in Cambodia have made the incident qualify as a genocide. The word "genocide," coined in 1944 by a Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin consists of a Greek prefix “genos” and a Latin suffix “cide." Genos means a tribe or a race, whereas cide means killing (United Nations n.d). The term was developed by Lemkin in response to the systematic murder of Jewish people by the Nazis during the holocaust. According to the United Nations, Article II of the current Genocide Convention, Genocide refers to the following acts that are committed with the intention of destroying a part of a whole of an ethnical, religious or national group. The act can include the killing of the group, causing mental or bodily harm to the group, coupled with deliberately inflicting the living conditions on the group. The definition of genocide and crimes against humanity that occurred in Cambodia suit the situation. Foreigners were targeted, with millions of residents incited being forced into slave labor in the Pol Pot's "killing fields."
What losses does Pahn endure, and how does his very personal story add or detract from your understanding of the disaster? What is the meaning of the title? Which part did you find the most moving? What did you think of the medium that Panh used to convey his experience?
The Missing Picture is poetic and a significantly historic documentary on the miserable life of the Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. The documentary was shot and narrated by Rithy Pahn. On April 17th, 11975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power, Rithy Pahn, his family, and millions of others were driven away from the cities straight to hell. There were millions of Cambodians just like Rithy Pahn who were towed away from their families. In the documentary, Pahn mentions how four years later, he lost many of his relatives, including his mother, his father, his niece and his nephew. The Missing Picture tends to effectively trace the ordeal suffered by Pahn and his family. He uses painted and carved clay figurines to serve as human stand-ins as he recreates his past. At the tender age of 11, Pahn is forced to abandon his birthplace. The missing picture provided a remarkable way for Pahn to effectively bring out the genocide years. The story by Pahn enhanced my knowledge on the understanding of the Cambodian massacre that occurred between 1975 and 1979. When the Khmer Rouge regime was finally overthrown, Pahn was able to escape to Thailand before later immigrating to France. Ideally, there exists limited documentation of the Cambodian genocide. What Pahn provided in The Missing Picture was significantly real as compared to the movies that have been shot in reference to the Cambodian genocide. I find the Missing Picture to be not only an act of recollection but also a complete work of literature, diorama and film, which has extensively contributed to the cultural memory of the Cambodia people through the generation of art form memories with the aim of fighting inaccuracies that exist in the documented story about the Cambodia genocide. The film has destructed me from my general understanding of the genocide since the film essentially represents the voices that have been silenced. I find the film to be compelling others to come out and tell a significant account of the genocide. From the film, I have realized that, indeed, there is a lot more than what we have learned about the Cambodian genocide.