Enemies Of The People Review

Journalist Thet Sambath has devoted his life to understanding why his family was killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia’s killing fields. He even neglects his own children to find answers, listening attentively to peasant foot soldiers as they attempt to explain their actions. Much of the testimony is hideously detailed and chilling in its detachment. But it’s Pol Pot’s deputy, Nuon Chea, who holds the key, and the years that Sambeth has invested in earning his trust are finally rewarded with an appalled apology at the end of this harrowing documentary. This is as fine an example of cinema-as-history as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, although Sambath is occasionally as manipulative in his methods as Lanzmann.