Review – S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

Here’s yet another low-budget documentary that thrives almost exclusively on the inherent impact of its subject. The production is nothing but cheap video shot and edited awkwardly. But whatever the producers lack in technical skills they more than make up for with their premise and connections. Put a couple of former victims of the Khmer Rouge torture houses in the same room with their former tormentors and you’re almost automatically going to end up with a fascinating movie. However, even more chilling than the confrontations were the scenes in which the former guards re-enacted the routine abuse of prisoners, pantomiming torture and murder with thin air for a victim. This doesn’t really reveal anything new about Cambodia in the 70s, but it does give the viewer an up-close look at the conflicted participants in the otherwise-faceless mass-extermination operation. Mildly amusing