Funan | Telescope Film
Funan

Funan

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Chou and her husband live in Phnom Penh with their son Sovanh and other family members. When the Khmer Rouge topples the Cambodian government in 1975, the family is forced out of the city by revolutionaries. After Sovanh and his grandmother get split up, Chou is determined to reunite the family no matter what it takes.

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What are critics saying?

90

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Funan is a stunning piece of animation in which the beauty of the visuals and the horror of the situation are inextricably intertwined.

90

The New York Times by Glenn Kenny

Do’s tale is resolutely earthbound. He uses animation as an interrogation into the practice of fictional depiction derived from actual atrocities.

83

TheWrap by William Bibbiani

The director translates the overwhelming concept of genocide into intimate, daily struggles, and the horror is indisputable, and inescapable; if you ever thought such a historical horror was “unthinkable,” you’ll think again.

80

Variety by Peter Debruge

The last half hour of Funan is so heavy that the film effectively plays more as tragedy than as triumph, all the more impactful for being true.

78

Austin Chronicle

It's an education suitable for both children ready to see the world's shadows, and for adults who may still not comprehend Southeast Asian history beyond the Vietnam War.

78

Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker

It's an education suitable for both children ready to see the world's shadows, and for adults who may still not comprehend Southeast Asian history beyond the Vietnam War.

75

RogerEbert.com by Matt Zoller Seitz

Funan is structured as a series of carefully choreographed set pieces in which things go from bad to worse to unimaginably awful.

70

Film Threat by Alex Saveliev

Do has created a tense, heartbreaking ode to a tragic time; a deeply personal story, superbly visualized.

70

The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer

Despite some narrative cliches, the painstaking way that the movie documents a very dark period in Cambodian history is a noteworthy achievement.

63

Slant Magazine by Keith Watson

There are hints that the film will scale itself to the broader historical context of this era, but the screenplay never elaborates on the ethnic strife the undergirds the Cambodian genocide.