French-Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh, who has become a familiar figure at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, premiered his latest documentary on Friday during the festival’s Special Screenings.
Having won several honors over the years including a top award in 2013 for his feature film “The Missing Picture,” Mr. Panh’s latest documentary, “Exile,” was met with largely positive reviews.
“‘Exile,’ of stunning beauty, endeavors to recreate in part the experience of those that the arrival of Pol Pot’s troops threw out of Phnom Penh,” journalist Mathieu Macheret wrote Saturday in the French daily newspaper Le Monde.
Although the 78-minute film is described as a documentary, he wrote, “the sole term ‘documentary’ does not suffice to embody a form of expression that supremely blends archival images, reenactment, theater, handicraft, still life images, portrayals of dreams, sensations and the imaginary world.”
Lee Marshall of the film-industry website Screen International wrote on Friday that, with its unusual concept, the film may attract a limited audience.
“Exile is more the insular, cerebral cinematic tone-poem, an intensely personal meditation on revolution, democracy and human happiness,” he wrote.
