Based on journalist Elizabeth Becker’s memoirs about her trip to Cambodia with two other journalists to interview Pol Pot, MEETING WITH POL POT is a fictionalized account of what happened and how it went sideways.
Director Rithy Panh continues his examination of what happened in his country a half century ago. Here we have a look at how efforts to see what was really going on the country was blocked by the leaders of the country. Panh uses what ever he needs, dolls and archival footage, in order to to make us feel and understand the madness that was running rampant. At times it's a real kick in the pants.
Unfortunately Panh doesn't always blend the emotion and the intellectual sides together. Part of the problem is that other than what happens to the three journalists, there isn't anything really new here. We've been here before, particularly in Panh's own films so some of the pauses where nothing happens or we go on the well controlled trips through the country feel a bit like filler. It's not fatal but it it prevents the film from being as compelling as it should have been.
I liked this film a great deal but I wanted to love it, particularly because I love the directors earlier films. This film felt like a revisit to the well. Perhaps if this was a bit closer to what actually happened I might have liked it more (there is real mystery involved).
My Reservations aside, this is still worth a look, especially if you don't know what happened in Cambodia when the whole country went mad.
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