Wrapping up part 1

Phnom Penh Crown's wonderkid, Keo Sokngorn, scored one of their goals in a 4-1 success

Work dictated that I couldn't make the final two Cambodian Premier League matches of the first half of the season this afternoon at Olympic Stadium, so I got my PPP pal Dene to relay the details to me. After today's games the clubs take a brief break before resuming with part two of the CPL season, which will culminate in a Top 4 play-off to decide the champions - a crap system if you ask me but that's their decision. Already promoted from the A1 division below, are Prek Pra Keila and Svay Rieng. This afternoon, Phnom Penh Crown cemented second place and are just three points off leaders Preah Khan Reach going into the mid-season break. Their 4-1 win over Post Tel was to be expected and their goals came from Chhim Ratanak, Akeeb Ayoyinka, Hong Rathana and Keo Sokngorn, before Saing Neth netted a late consolation. Khemara Keila comfortably beat Build Bright 3-1 in the second match, despite BBU taking the lead through Prum Puth Sethy. That man Kouch Sokumpheak was on target again, his 9th league goal of the campaign, as was Samuth Dalin and Olatunde.
After work I went to watch Rithy Panh's The People of Angkor at Reyum with about fifty teenage Khmer schoolkids who have a completely different way of watching a film than I do. They talk non-stop, laugh loudly, phone their friends and generally mess about whilst I was trying to watch a film I've been waiting to see for a few years. Remind me never to go and watch a Khmer movie at Lux. As for the parts of the film I managed to see and hear, the 'real' lives of the inhabitants of Angkor appeared completely scripted in my view and that took some of the shine off it. There was a lot of humour, which pleased the schoolkids, and it was good to see another appearance from the sweeper of Ta Prohm, Choun Nhiem, who passed away earlier this year. I'm pleased I've seen it but it's not one of Panh's best films by a long chalk.

Panh's People

One of the Rithy Panh films that I still haven't see is The People of Angkor, or Le gens d'Angkor, as it was known on its release in 2003. Well I will get my first chance on Wednesday of next week, at the Reyum Gallery on Street 178 at 6pm, when the film will be screened in Khmer with English subtitles (which is a relief as I thought it might've been in French). Panh, who has dedicated his directorial career towards showing Cambodians in tough and tragic real-life situations, vulnerable but also with hope, humour and realism in films like Rice People, Land of Wandering Souls, S-21, The Burnt Theatre and Paper Cannot Wrap Embers, said of his 90-minute movie; "This film is about the people who live there. An inside view in the shadow of the temples and the great kapok trees, an inhabited shadow that the world’s tourists pass through unawares, wrapped up in contemplating the treasures of Khmer art. This is not just one more film about the monuments of Angkor, their history or their architecture....A story of pain and hope, where the past and present are intermingled, where the divine and human complement each other, and where humor enables people to express the anguish of survival, just as art transcends the contingencies of destiny."

French indulgence

Talking of film directors, I just saw the most talked about Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh at the Bophana Center when I popped along to see The Sea Wall for the first time. He was standing outside, talking quietly on his mobile (isn't everyone these days) as the audience filtered in. He didn't say anything, or introduce his film, he was just there and of course, no one recognised him at all. He doesn't know me from Adam, though we've emailed a few times, so I didn't bother him and joined the rest of the crowd in the small auditorium, to watch the near 2-hour film adaptation of a Marguerite Duras novel, set in 1920s southern Cambodia. Beautifully shot in and around Ream national park, with the lovely Cambodian countryside and waterways as its magnificent backdrop, it's a love story with the land, as one widow and her two adult children struggle to overcome the odds to make ends meet. They ultimately fail as the film takes us through a history lesson of French colonial indulgence whilst the Khmers are treated as servants and lackeys, as was the way of the French in Indochina. It didn't blow me away as a film but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, even though the bench-pew seats at Bophana were very uncomfortable.

Next Saturday, 11 April (4pm), the Bophana Center (on Street 200) is to screen The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, a mix of classical dance, music and shadow puppets centered around the story of survival, of a certain Em Theay and four other dancers. It was produced in 2001, directed by Ong Keng Sen from Singapore and toured extensively as a stage performance in the US, Europe, Singapore and in Phnom Penh. I've never seen it, so count me in.

Em Theay performing at Angkor Wat. Photo: ck123@noos.fr

Sea Wall screenings

Your first chance to see Rithy Panh's latest feature-length film offering, The Sea Wall, here in Cambodia, will be upon us soon enough. The French Cultural Center (St 184) are screening the film, in French with English subtitles, on four consecutive nights, beginning on 4 March at 7pm. Entry is free. Panh is Cambodia's best-known international film director and launched his latest work, The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique), at the Toronto Film Festival towards the end of last year. With critically-acclaimed films such as S-21, Rice People, Burnt Theatre and lots more under his belt, he has moved into more mainstream cinema with his newest work adapted from a classic French novel and including the successful French actress Isabelle Huppert amongst a strong cast. The photo above reminds me of the Oliver Stone film Heaven and Earth which included Cambodian actor Haing Ngor amongst its cast.

Postscript: On Monday 2nd March there will be an exhibition opening at 6pm called 'The Making of the Sea Wall' at the Bophana Center on Street 200. The film itself will show for 4 nights from the 4th March at the CCF though tickets can be collected from the Bophana Center beforehand, just to make sure you get a seat at one of the 4 screenings.
Not in French but in English, though it'll be delivered by Christophe Pottier, the head of the French-based EFEO in Siem Reap, will be a talk on Friday evening (27 Feb) titled, 'Dating Temples: histories of styles and style of history?' at 6.30pm at the EFEO offices alongside the Siem Reap River. I am kicking myself that I won't be there to listen. Definitely my bag.