Phnom Penh Lullaby – Life among the prostitutes – Film tonight at 20:00 Saturday 9th April at the Capitole 2 cinema. This is a world premiere.
Here is Kathys Morf’s review of the above film. Kathy says “This is a story without taboos showing an unusual couple struggling with their love and existential situation in Phnom Penh. I have travelled to Cambodia before, seen the poverty and passed by the building in the film. This movie not only shows how children can be easily conceived, but also how effortlessly they can be sold into prostitution. You cannot trust anyone, not even your family. The images are difficult to digest even for the toughest of heart”.
Visions of Hell
Saran and Ilhan live in a small, dark, damp and crumbling room in Street 51 with their daughter Jasmine. Saran is Cambodian and Ilhan is Israeli. He left Israel for Cambodia eight years ago when his father died and he could not find work. He met Saran and they moved to her place. Saran had various relationships and now has five children from three different fathers. Ilhan is the only one that stayed with her: the others ran away during her pregnancies.
Saran has only kept the youngest daughter with her. Her second daughter Marie lives with relatives in the capital and her first daughter and son, whom she hasn’t seen in five years, live with her aging parents in a small village near Kratie, far away from Phnom Penh.
Living in the night
We follow the family to their night jobs: Ilhan reads peoples fortunes and earns a meagre living while Saran seems to mostly drink and fool around with friends. Jasmine is brought along wherever they go and is put to sleep in a corner on a woven mat, not far away from the roaring traffic and noise. As Ilhan waits for new clients he is enchanted by the beautiful and scantily clad Vietnamese girls of the night passing by.
The movie is sequenced with black and white scenes that haunt the mind. Young pushers offer drugs of all types, girls and boys are offered for pleasure, even babies. The atmosphere is dark, violent and children inhale glue or other awful chemicals from plastic bags.
One day Saran decides to take her daughter Marie to Kratie to live with one of her brothers. They make the long journey by bus and boat into the night and arrive at dawn. The couple spends time with the family and show them pictures of happy events. The parents are old but offer to take in another child if Ilhan can help them financially. He is broke and has nothing to give them. They leave again for Phnom Penh taking Marie with them. Saran has decided to keep her with them in their cramped room.
The couple begins to fight and Ilhan stands strong saying that he cannot afford two daughters. A solution needs to be found. Can the couple survive this additional hardship?
To read Kathy’s and to find out more about her see her other review “Né sous Z”
Film directed by Pawel Kloc – Poland – 98 minutes in length
Spoken in English and Khmer, Subtitles in English and French