User Reviews

I got to see this film at a special screening at the Alliance France in Manila, the French embassy's cultural center. Many of the small audience in the screening room (the copy screened was a DVD) did not bother to finish the film.

For myself, I found the film a flawed but powerful experience. One major flaw is, as other reviewers have pointed out, its cold opening. In other words, it assumes you already know what S-21 is and what the Khmer Rouge are. Without this valuable background information, which the documentary does not provide, the viewers may be lost at first.

It is also kind of dry, since the movie takes place only within the walls of S-21, involving only the few survivors of the prison and some of their former jailers. Essentially they spent the entire film talking. There is no attempt on the part of the director to make it more cinematic.

However, the patient viewer will soon find him or herself immersed in the horrors of the Khmer Rouge as detail after detail of the atrocities committed in the prison emerge. The handful of survivors go through mementos of the prison, including logbooks detailing the tortures committed against inmates, along with some of those who worked in the prison, including a guard and a doctor. The question the survivors constantly ask their former jailers is: How? How could you do these things? And they have no answers.

The most chilling scenes in the film involve a former prison guard recreating in an empty cell the routine he took with the prisoners, bringing them food, water or a container to pee in, threatening them with a beating if they don't go to sleep or cry too loudly. Its throughly disturbing to see, even if there are no actual prisoners there.

S-21 is not for everybody. But if you're already familiar with the Khmer Roune and this part of Cambodian history, the documentary may be worth watching to deepen your understanding of this dark period of history.

I saw this documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film offered powerful testimony from jailers that perpetrated torture and killings. As well, this film elicits the expected emotions from survivors. It was stunning to listen to members of the Khymer Rouge speak so candidly about their inhumanity and also portray themselves as victims that had been simultaneously coerced and indoctrinated into this movement. Very similar to ideas heard in Nazi Germany with the Holocaust and later at the Nuremberg trials. i.e. I was just following orders, I had no choice, or indoctrination similar to fascist propaganda. As powerful as this documentary was, I believe that the extensive testimonies that filled an entire film, limited the effectiveness of the genre. By filling the film with nothing but testimonies, the documentary became repetitive and detracted from the impact it could have had. Jailers acting out the daily routine of checking cells and the lengthy reading of forced admissions of guilt occasionally dulled the impact of other powerful testimony(Sometimes less is more). The director Rithy Panh searched for answers from the jailers, but the standard responses: "i was following orders" etc. would not suffice. He was looking for larger answers on the nature of humanity and what causes people to do such atrocities. The responses from the Khymer Rouge were unacceptable for Panh and he never got the answers that he seemed to need to start the healing process. I believe that more background into the history of Cambodia would have answered some of those questions. No one will ever adequately answer questions on the nature of humanity, but an investigation into the movement would have given many viewers insight into this horrific historical event. At the same time it would have made the testimony more powerful. The barrage of testimony almost made the atrocities seem common. The balancing of information and background with testimony, would have made this all the more powerful. Many people have a limited knowledge of events in Cambodia when compared to Nazi Germany or the Stalinist Purges and yet it is equally disturbing in both scope and sheer evil. I was hoping to be educated and informed whilst being numbed by the inhumanity. For the most part that did not happen. Nevertheless, the documentary is still well done. Much of the testimony is shocking, particularly the mass burials. A film that is well worth two hours of your life to watch, but not for the faint at heart.

For me, there are other films that deal with the full atrocities of the Khmer Rouge I would have watched one of them. Instead I wished to view the first hand accounts of guards and survivors, and this is what the film gave me.

It doesn't make this a good or bad film on this basis alone, I'm simply explaining on the criteria which I'm judging it.

Bringing together 2 of the 3 surviving prisoners, a few guards, and a doctor from the death factory of S21 to show one of several face to face encounters they have shared, we get the chance to have a front row seat to what they experienced. There were several mentions of these gatherings, plural, that it is clear this is not something the filmmaker took upon himself for the sake of the audience.

We hear of the punishments, the torture, and most upsetting to me the fact the they were coerced and beaten, sometimes treated medically so they would survive the torture until they would give a confession. Yet all admit the confessions were for the simple reason the prisoners were executed. This sent shivers down my spine.

The beginning scene to me was like a scene in a modern motion picture: it frames how we will view the rest of the footage. It succeeded very well on this extent.

I marked this film slightly lower than perfect for two reasons. The first is that there was no outside footage, except for a Kampuchea Loyalty song. Since this was the only outside influence I recall, it threw me out of the context when it played. Second a few scenes would have been handled better in a longer, slightly shorter single scene. The two separate daytime examples one guard gave of his behavior to called prisoners would have really benefited from this treatment. It also would have allowed the single nighttime example this guard gave of his treatments to these walking-dead men and women an added punch.

Overall, still an excellent film, as was Shoah which took the same technique. Don't expect a primer on the Khmer Roige, there are plenty of good ones around.

Before my recent visit to Cambodia which included a short tour of S21, I did some reading on the prison and the complex events that led to its development and operation during the Democratic Kampuchea (Pol Pot) regime.

This movie did a remarkable job filling in my sense of S21 that was not otherwise possible to experience through reading or even touring the prison. For example, interviews with two of the only seven survivors out of over 14,000 prisoners detained and killed at S21 was remarkable by itself as was the opening sequence of a former guard discussing the morality of his role with parents who no doubt felt the full brunt of the Khmer Rouge's brutality, yet survived.

Seeing details such as the private cells, photography apparatus, the typewriters that clacked away to record prisoners' tortured confessions, and the former guards' convincing reenactment of their job as teenage guards at this grisly place was at the same time deeply disturbing and satisfying in improving my understanding of this total institution. The very instruments of dehumanization - ammunition buckets used for toilets, the bare tile floors prisoners were shackled to between interrogations and torture, the windows open to mosquitoes and vermin allowed to feast on the prisoners - are both stark and subtle in their presentation.

Those who expect anything more than a rudimentary understanding of this infamous killing machine may be disappointed. Seeing this movie was at least as valuable as seeing the prison in person. I especially recommend it for anyone who has visited S21 or expects to visit Cambodia.

A few years ago, I find myself travelling through South-East Asia, at one point trying to piece together a baffling series of events that resulted in the genocide of a third of Kampuchea, or Cambodia as we now call it.

I read as much as I can, and try to speak to survivors. But the eyes of family members well up with tears. The inexpressible grief is barely contained. Out of respect, I desist.

Some time later, I see this film by internationally acclaimed human rights director, Rithy Panh. He has a better reason for asking – he survived the massacre. His work, unlike my simple desire for knowledge, would provide momentum for confessions and now a war crimes tribunal. At the 'Killing Fields' outside Phnom Penh is a tree against which children had their brains bashed out. In the film, a guard explains how parents would be separated from each other, and from their children, to minimise fuss. The adults were told not to worry: they were going to a new home. They were then blindfolded for 'security reasons' and, ammunition being scarce, hit on the back of the neck with metal bars before being cast into a pit.

Executions followed three levels of torture at S.21, a school building in Phnom Penh converted into a concentration camp (and now a memorial visitors centre). Details are so hideous – humans packed like abattoir carcasses, and systematic torture, that you could be forgiven for suspecting truth has been embroidered. Except for one fact. Meticulous records of every victim were kept. Each non-person, each beating, each flaying of skin, each removal of fingernails, chemical and electrical abuses, rape. Precise details of prisoners chained to iron bars to sleep, crammed together top-to-toe, living sharing a sardine-row with the dead.

Rithy Panh's master stroke brings together S.21 survivors (two of the existing three) and former guards and torturers. He encourages them to talk. To find answers. One of the hardest things, even now, is these perpetrators see themselves also as victims. They joined Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge for what seemed like all the right reasons. Once inducted, they were brainwashed, indoctrinated and trapped. Deviation meant the same fate as those they flayed alive. Most were youths at the time, easily manipulated. But, how can you forgive and move on, when no-one will admit wrong-doing? Even Pol Pot blamed the people he left in charge.

Men joined the Khmer Rouge because their villages were being repeatedly bombed. With their government's approval. The much loved Prince Sihanouk had been ousted in a coup. Lon Nol, an ineffective, U.S.-backed ruler, was forcibly installed in his place. Lon Nol gave America (under Johnson and Nixon) 'permission' for what became the largest bombing campaign in human history. Two and three-quarter million tons of bombs – the revised figure released by the Clinton administration – was more than the total dropped by all the allies in the whole of World War Two (which only came to two million, even including Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Whole areas of the country became pock-marked, aerial chemical deforestation destroyed livelihoods and created famine and disease. Thousands killed, many more permanently displaced. The Khmer Rouge leaders kept their extreme agenda – a form of rural, back-to-basics communism – completely secret until they were installed in power. Then the purges started. Lon Nol supporters were followed to the grave by academics or anyone tainted with 'western' ideas. Anyone opposing Pol Pot, or whose name was elicited under extreme torture. The population was turned out of the cities, dying of starvation. With no-one else to purge, the despots found traitors to execute its own members.

Kampuchea's leading doctor, Swiss born Beat Richner, adamantly told me that without American intervention – which had been aimed ironically at stopping communism in the region – there would have been no Khmer Rouge. No Pol Pot victory. Richner worked in Kampuchea before, during and after Pol Pot, and his coal-face assessment agrees with most historians. But it is controversial: the U.S. military claim that Pol Pot would have won anyway. Ordinary Cambodians are still grieving rather than blaming. Rithy Panh's film exposes horror without finger-pointing. There are no 'lessons to be learnt.' Millions died – estimates say around a third of the population, two to three million. (And this in a country smaller than Great Britain. As a benchmark comparison, Hitler exterminated six million Jews .) While Panh documents the existence of atrocities, he does little to substantiate the bigger picture, which has to be gleaned elsewhere or from casual remarks of the former guards.

Rithy Panh's film, S.21 – The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, has no real ax to grind – in the tradition of best documentary, it simply tries to provide a window. While it is powerful evidence, many viewers might find it emotionally less satisfying than more box-office friendly film by Roland Joffé, The Killing Fields, which (symbolically) suggests the West's responsibility by the journalist who 'uses' his Cambodian friend for his own ends, and also has more of a story. Either way, it is a country that makes me ashamed to be a Westerner. Yet Cambodians have more to worry about than my sense of emotional well-being. Avoiding hunger, or the thousands of landmines that still litter their country. In Joffe's film, an American journalist travels to a Red Cross camp to be reunited with a Cambodian colleague he deserted to his fate. "Do you forgive me?" he asks. The Cambodian answers with a smile, "Nothing to forgive, Sydney, nothing to forgive." Although it won many awards, Panh's movie is rarely shown outside of Cambodia. There you can pick it up for about $3. From one of the many maimed or desperate hawkers that haunt the road outside Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This place formerly known as Security Prison 21, or 'S.21' for short, still has living ghosts. The film just tells us where they came from.

From the many mistakes of the Vietnam War was Pol Pot and the rise of the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia. "The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine" isn't interviews or a narration of events, it is about five to seven men who lived through the Khmer Rouge reign of terror from both sides. There were recollections from prisoners and guards alike.

Unfortunately there's no back story or history given. There are so many questions like who are the Khmer Rouge? How did they start? What were their aims? And much more. You can get some of that from John Pilger's documentary "Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia" (1979). In this documentary we get to hear testimonies and see some reenactments, which was powerful in its own way, but I really wish we could've heard from more people and heard more about the Khmer Rouge as a whole.

At an hour and forty minutes this documentary is about thirty minutes longer than it needs to be based upon the format. It's mostly testimonials that were repetitive and probably on the milder side (when it came to the Khmer Rouge soldiers). They read some journals, reviewed some documents, and showed the, now defunct, prison. I think its full impact was dampened by this format even though I think it's important that the victims as well as the perpetrators speak about the experience.

Free on YouTube.

I have read the other comments on here and think that many people missed the point. This documentary illustrated the banality of evil very powerfully; it did not preach or try to shove the makers' opinion down the viewers' throat, like SO many other so-called documentaries do. This is not one of those "documentaries" which show edited footage and historical footage as a mere backdrop to put forth someone's opinion. That's what made it so powerful, to see the people who committed this incomprehensible evil and those that suffered it asking their own questions, trying to make sense of it all, trying to justify it, analyzing their roles in real time as the cameras roll. It was very evident that this was the first time many of them had questioned themselves on what they had done. The repetitive re-enactment and explanation of the guard's day to day activities were horrific in their normality. Even after all these years, after all that's happened, these men had no qualms about showing the world their routines, making it obvious that they don't equate their actions directly to the effects it had on their fellow country men and women. One has to remember that the guards were brain washed and indoctrinated by the communists at a very young age. This can be directly equated with what's happening in the world today with militant Islam. They're creating their own amoral killers and fanatics by indoctrinating and brain washing children. If nothing else, this documentary shows how once indoctrinated at a young age with fanatical ideology, all that remains for the rest of that persons life is an empty shell incapable of comprehending basic humanity.

This is a great movie about the Cambodian genocide. Refusing any sensational or sentimental approach, it is just made out of testimonies, and patiently, slowly tries to understand how such a thing could happen. The mechanics of the Khmer Rouge crimes, the paranoiac will to obtain (by torture) a "reason" (completely absurd) to kill their victims is terrifying. And testimony's of the torturers are striking of refusal. Patience, the intelligence and the firmness of one of the rare surviving victims give again fortunately confidence in humanity. This movie is made on a similar approach to Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah". Which means to place the testimonies in the center, and refusing any reconstitution or archive images. Maybe the only way to speak about such an event ?

In this emotional and gripping movie Rithy Panh confronts former killers and the few survivors (among the thousands of inmates) of the slaughtering in the horrible S-21 prison in Phnom Penh during the Red Khmer regime in Kampuchea. The guards show the place were people were clubbed to death, not shot. The sound of gun shots would have created panic among the group of prisoners waiting to be killed. The inmates confess blatantly that under untenable torture they told their interrogators everything those wanted to hear and denounced as traitors even the most innocent of their compatriots. The movie creates a nearly unbearable emotional climate by showing the extreme excesses of a Marxist ideology going mad, killing even intentionally children and babies. A one party State was installed where the top forced a terror regime on the entire population.

This movie is a must see for all those interested in the history and the nature of mankind.

I saw this film on the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival. What starts out as an interesting and powerful documentary about the Khymer Rouge and the horrible events that unfolded in Cambodia quickly turns into a documentary of testimonials. The testimonials are initially powerful and moving, as both former prisoners and guards are able to confront each other about the events in the past. However, after the first few subjects give their stories, there is a sense of repetitiveness that echoes more and more with each following testimonial. It probably would have helped if there were some more historical information provided about Cambodia and how the Khymer Rouge came about. Overall, S21 covers an interesting subject, but it did not flow very well.

This film had so much potential, but just didn't get it done.

The first, really glaring problem is the opening that has a very incomplete and poorly-explained history of how the Khmer Rouge came to power. I found it confusing, and I know the history. They make the mistake of assuming people already know what happened there.

S21 has such a horrifying history, a place where humanity reached its nadir, but the film really just scratches the surface.

One angle that goes almost completely unexplored is the loss/lack of humanity on both sides. The destruction of the prisoners is well-covered, but the guards are given a mostly one-dimensional role, and their own situation is barely considered, aside from overly long reenactments of how they would conduct themselves toward the prisoners.

Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of S21, talks to the guards who are pretty close-mouthed and unwilling/unable to defend themselves. One should remember that they were largely 12 or 13 year-olds, selected at that age because they could be easily manipulated and indoctrinated, or they did what they did because they feared for their own lives. Seeing a survivor talk to the guards is very interesting, but they also needed someone neutral, as Vann has no patience for their explanations. Vann laments the loss of humanity of the prisoners, but does not consider that it existed on both sides.

Many of the things the guards did would be so anathema to human nature, be so morally repugnant, that I don't think (or like to believe) that most people would do them unless they fear for their lives, or could not really grasp what they were doing.

Granted, many Khmer Rouge knew exactly what was going on, and they condoned torture and murder. If one ever goes to S21 and sees the mug shots on the wall, with men, women, children, even infants looking back at you with heartbreaking fear and hopelessness, you cannot help but hate those who killed them. But, if this film also looked at those who did it and why, it would have been much more effective.

On the whole, it's a very disappointing experience. There's so much to talk about, and more horror than you can really wrap your mind around, but the film doesn't help you appreciate this.

The Khmer Roug massacres were vicious, to say the least. This documentary informs the audience of this and impresses upon them the torture that only few survived. Without having any knowledge of the history that led up to these events, I left the theater in the same state. I understood that a massacre had occurred, but the extent was not identified in any terms more than abstract death. The narration was slow and rather boring. I practically fell asleep three times during the showing because of the lack of information presented to me and the mediocre filming.

The film also lacked integration of background information regarding the history of the country and expected the viewer to have that knowledge before entering the theater. It was a compilation of two sides coming together to share their stories of pain. Truly, it was a horrible incident, but the continuing narration by the soldiers through every move they made when picking up and delivering a prisoner was rather unnecessary and added about twenty minutes of film that was not needed.

The two hours and eight dollars I spent on this film would have been better spent on a pony ride. I recommend picking up a book before going to this movie, that is if you choose to do so. Beware that going in without being informed about the Khmer Roug massacre will result in you leaving with the same amount of knowledge with the addition of numerous tragic stories to amplify your interest, but it delivers nothing of substance.

When I saw this, I'd a decent understanding of the Khmer Rogue, not too much but not too little. And normally? I don't make such negative reviews but I was really frustrated as it had plenty of opportunities to have far more depth. This documentary could have been loads better but its construction has some fundamental flaws. There seems very little point in just assembling a group of guards and prisoners when it's evident human nature dictates that abusers are often in denial of everything they have done. Such an attempt is not just cruel but merciless, for it brings untold suffering to the victims who actually have to put up with the torment of seeing their abusers again. There was also no moderator with in-depth and relevant knowledge of said events, to intervene and to help bridge the communication between all the parties involved.

Nor was there a mental health specialist who might be able to comment on the circumstances and guide everyone to a point of understanding and even redemption. What results instead is sensationalism where the victims' suffering and the abusers' depictions are exploited for the sake of eliciting a response in the audience, by accident or intention. Yes, the torture was chilling but without further exploration, what did that really add to the documentary? Missing too were historians or even academics to add layers of rich history, facts, analysis and commentaries which would link the incidents depicted to the Khmer Rogue history and even open set after set of questions.

As mentioned by others, the film makes a fatal flaw of mentioning little about the Khmer Rogue or even the history of the S21 prison. I know some of the "S21 guards" were actually prisoners who were given the choice of "kill or be killed". Yet this issue is never really approached and there is no in-depth analysis of their mindsets, their motivations, trauma, etc. Nor is there any exploration of whether certain historical and even cultural aspects might have further eased the rise and acceptance of the Khmer Rogue or figures like Pol Pot or Duch. For example: did you know that anti-Semitism had existed in Germany since the medieval era, possibly because of the stoning of Jesus Christ or maybe other events?

In certain Asian cultures, authoritarian figures are accepted and sometimes even welcomed, regardless of any acts they're guilty of. Is this blind acceptance a 21st century phenomenon paralleled in other cultures or was that a sign of a decaying structure or had it existed in Cambodian culture for over 1000 years? And did that play any role to the acceptance of Duch as a leader of S21? Or did Duch hold his position simply because of his ability to instill terror and fear and not anything else? And there were many other questions in my mind too. Yet, unlike most documentaries I've watched, I didn't emerge with a broader understanding on at least some of the questions.

Instead, the viewers are left to assume or if not, take certain things at face value. Such an approach is fine in the realm of fiction but for non-fiction, it's never good to allow a viewer's thoughts, viewpoints, prejudices, etc. to influence his perceptions so that he might engage in guesswork. Anyone unfamiliar with the history pertaining to this subject would be in the dark and emerge with no better understanding. At the worst, someone might even emerge with partial denial of said events because of how they deduce and arrive at certain conclusions. Yes, I've seen this before and that happens whenever an approach towards such a sensitive topic isn't handled properly.

I like documentaries, usually. I certainly thought this one lacking thou. First the narrative is slow. The purpose of the movie isnt clear cut. The only novelty is interviewing former guards and there "naivety".

Films have the resource of stimulating the visual not only the intelectual... this film/documentary barely stimulates us visually. A few shots of some paintings and the old buildings where the atrocities were commited only. Some shock value lacking.

I recomend it only for people who know nothing of the Khmer Rouge and their history. Its certainly worth to learn of what happens when governements get into a spiralling paranoia and how easily people can get to commit attrocieties and kill.