A River Changes Course | Telescope Film
A River Changes Course

A River Changes Course

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  • Cambodia
  • 2013
  • · 83m

Director Kalyanee Mam
Genre Drama, Documentary

In "A River Changes Course", Kalyanee Mam exposes the dark underbelly of rapid development in her native Cambodia. Mam has us follow displaced families through fruitless lands and fruitless situations as she illustrates both the urban plight, as well as the environment degradation, that results from such developments.

Stream A River Changes Course

What are critics saying?

90

The New York Times by Nicole Herrington

This human story is profound enough to stand on its own.

80

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

Beautiful images can be a distraction in a serious documentary, but that's hardly the case here. They draw us in so we can better understand the hurtling changes that endanger the future of Cambodia and, by extension, much of the developing world.

80

Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden

Mam's camera work is exquisite in its immediacy and agility. One of the most striking aspects of her film is the intimacy it achieves without feeling intrusive or turning her subjects into fodder for a message.

80

Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl

For the most part, the narrative here feels generational, representative, rather than invested in the specific incidents of specific lives.

75

Slant Magazine by Tomas Hachard

A delicate documentary about a way of life that's slowly disappearing, yet gives way to nothing new.

70

The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore

Honest and well made but lacking a strong hook.

70

The Dissolve by Nick Schager

Prospects are dim no matter where these people choose to reside, and A River Changes Course captures their struggle with an ethnographic gaze that generally maintains enough detachment to avoid excessive, judgmental handwringing and heartstring-tugging.