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“While Panh's subjects don't shy away from discussing the sexual details of their work, the emphasis isn't on the sensational but on women whose lives have been ground into dust by their experiences.” - All Movie Guide
In a dilapidated apartment block in the city of Phnom Penh, filmmaker Rithy Panh (S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, MIFF 04) turns his stylised lens on a downtown brothel, painting a despairing picture of the women who work there. Haunted by genocide and fearful of everything, their lives carry the ugly weight of Cambodia's history, as they contend with violence, exploitation, poverty, AIDS and the alienation of shame.
Using subtle - almost poetic - staging of scenes and conversations, Panh's quietly devastating film exists somewhere in the divide between documentary and drama.
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D Rithy Panh P Catherine Dissart, Gerald Collas WS INA L Cambodian w/English subtitles TD digibeta/2006/90mins