100
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The result is a history lesson both invaluable and horrific.
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge)
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Cambodia,
- France
- 2003
- · 101m
Director
Rithy Panh
Cast
Chum Mey,
Khieu 'Poev' Ches,
Yeay Cheu,
Nhiem Ein,
Houy Him,
Ta Him
Genre
Documentary
Between 1975 and 1970, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia forced famine, hard labor, and violence upon its population in its quest for an agrarian utopia. 30 years later, survivors and ex-Khmer Rouge guards are interviewed in the S21 torture prison, now a Genocide museum, to discover how these atrocities could have happened.
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What are critics saying?
83
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Yet S21, unlike many documentaries about the Nazi era, isn't a sickening panorama of brutality. Shot on video, it's quiet and intimate.
80
TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox
Shattering documentary.
80
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
S21 is understated and unforgettable; in its modest way, this movie is as horrific an exposure to evil as Lanzmann's "Shoah."
80
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Mr. Rithy Panh makes telling use of a survivor whose ability to communicate lends itself to the subject. The tragedy is that Mr. Vann Nath's powers are used to illuminate these horrors.
80
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
Modest but nonetheless devastating documentary.
80
Washington Post by Ann Hornaday
Cinema at its most intellectually honest and morally necessary.
75
New York Post by V.A. Musetto
Man's inhumanity to man is gruesomely detailed in S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.
70
The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin
A harrowing, unblinking look at the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal regime that by some accounts killed off more than a quarter of Cambodia's population between 1975 and 1979.
60
Film Threat by Phil Hall
This is clearly not a pleasant film to watch on many levels.
60
Chicago Reader
The efforts of victims and victimizers to come to terms with historical trauma are admirable, but the film is too tough-minded to espouse a facile discourse of "healing" in the face of genocide driven by ideology run amok.
60
Chicago Reader by Richard M. Porton
The efforts of victims and victimizers to come to terms with historical trauma are admirable, but the film is too tough-minded to espouse a facile discourse of "healing" in the face of genocide driven by ideology run amok.
50
Variety by Derek Elley
There's no shortage of existing docus on the subject, and Panh's doesn't bring either a fresh enough angle or enough new material to the table to justify its length.
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