Made in 1989, Site 2 is Cambodian director Rithy Panh’s debut film, for which he returned to the borderland between Cambodia and Thailand ten years after he himself had been a refugee in the region. Site 2 (or Site II) is the name of what for many years was the largest camp for people that fled Cambodia and refugees from Vietnam that had come via land. Founded in 1985 on Thai territory and closed in 1993, its population had reached 180.000 at the time when Rithy Panh shot his film. On the one hand it had a developed infra structure with hospitals, schools, temples, and a market, on the other hand, like many other refugee camps in this region, its population suffered from internal and external violence and diseases. 5,6 sqkm large, fenced in with barbed wire, and patrolled by Thai forces, it offered a very restricted life for its inhabitants, who were assigned minimal personal space. Rather than dramatising these negative aspects, Rithy Panh’s remarkable film calmly follows the daily routine in the camp. It opens with a long sequence in which a woman describes how she escaped from Cambodia during the Vietnamese offensive in 1979, how she moved from camp to camp to eventually reach Site 2. She and her family then become the focus of the film with her steady voice explaining and commenting on various aspects of life in the camp, while we follow what the camera has captured, often in long uninterrupted takes. Without complaining, she names the various difficulties people in the camp face and compares her life to that of a crab in a hole, placing all her hopes in the education of her children. Though Site 2 is now closed, Rithy Panh’s film reminds us of the fact that war or natural causes such as draughts, earthquakes or floods have forced large numbers of people to leave their homes in the past and that this will continue to happen in the future. The people and countries that will be most affected lie outside Europe, but we are nevertheless entangled with their fate.
France 1989, colour 90 mins. With English subtitles.
Directed by Rithy Panh.
The screening will be introduced by May Adadol Ingawanij, Reader in Visual Culture, Acting Director of the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), and Director of Research at the International Centre for Documentary and Experimental Film, University of Westminster.
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