Graves Without a Name

Intricate white paper-cut prayer flags flutter in the wind; a rising plume of incense traces every small motion of air; monks chant, shaving the head of Rithy Panh. The great chronicler of the Cambodian genocide, Rithy summons the souls of his own family members who died, horribly, mostly alone, in the far reaches of the Pol Pot killing machine. He clutches a handful of tiny photographs from a happier time, while women shamans in trance call out to the missing, pleading with them to reveal themselves. Rithy plants flags around a tree that might harbor the spirit of his father, who starved to death nearby. The search, the yearning and the love are real. Rithy creates a fragrant, flickering, floating, light-filled ceremony to offer healing to lost lives, a resting place, a grave with a marker, and a kind of transcendent, still unspeakable peace. It is all he can do. (Telluride Film Festival)