Paper cannot wrap embers
Director Rithy Panh
Countries France
Duration 86 min
Synopsis
This film listens to the prostitutes living in the “white building” in downtown Phnom Penh. For the Cambodian director, the most telling sign of the social collapse of a country torn by decades of war is the way the bodies of those who have nothing are economically and politically exploited: the dead soldiers leave behind children in underpaid jobs, or worst, in prostitution. “Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la Braise” doesn’t show us characters, but people. Rithy Panh makes use of film to counter the objectification of those people’s bodies and to allow their own voices to claim humanity and an individuality otherwise denied in their daily lives.
This film listens to the prostitutes living in the “white building” in downtown Phnom Penh. For the Cambodian director, the most telling sign of the social collapse of a country torn by decades of war is the way the bodies of those who have nothing are economically and politically exploited: the dead soldiers leave behind children in underpaid jobs, or worst, in prostitution. “Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la Braise” doesn’t show us characters, but people. Rithy Panh makes use of film to counter the objectification of those people’s bodies and to allow their own voices to claim humanity and an individuality otherwise denied in their daily lives.