The Last Days of Colonel Savath

The Last Days of Colonel Savath, Norodom Sihanouk, 1995

The late erstwhile Cambodian king's movie is a work of somebody who loves to tell history through cinema. This is a pretty straightforward story about the fall of the republicans at Phnom Phen at the hand's of the communists. The portrayal is without frills and stock reel footage meets dramatic footage to tell the story of the attack on Phnom Phen in 1975. I was very very engaged with the movie, and it was an excellent lesson in history, besides being a good, honest short film. There is an unusual neutrality in the storytelling (which, if intentional is genius {it could be the director's own outlook too}) that makes the movie a much better watch than what its shoddy technique suggests.