I have recently watched a documentary that I really want to talk about. It’s one of those films that speak to you on a deeper level, touch your feelings and make you reevaluate different aspects of history.

It’s called “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll “. 

This documentary investigates a huge part of Cambodian culture that was destroyed during  Khmer Rouge regime and Cambodian genocide. Before 1975, when Cambodia was captured by Khmer Rouge and forced into highly repressive and xenophobic regime, the country was enjoying rich culture and some of the finest rock music of the time. Today, most people would be very sceptical of such a statement: who has heard of Cambodian rock and roll, am I right? It seems obvious for us that its the US and sometime Europe who produced the greatest rock music of all time.

Sadly, Cambodian rock and roll simply didn’t survive for us to remember.

The director of this film John Pirozzi was filming a completely unrelated movie in Cambodia when he was given a copy of the album Cambodian Rocks. Like any of us, he was quite surprised to find out about existence of rock and roll culture in Cambodia and he was interested to learn more. The album he was gifted turned out to be a collection of untitled music by artists who were presumably killed during Khmer Rouge’s Cambodian genocide. Pirozzi began his research and managed to find some of the survived artists. This documentary focuses on their stories, and on how their talents were mercilessly killed their music was brutally silenced.

This film drove me to realize just how important and powerful a documentary can be. It’s not just a story or an educational tool, it’s not Discovery Channel’s “How it’s made” rubric. This film revived a whole lost culture that would otherwise be completely forgotten over the years. It breathed life in a decade that we thought to be dead. It also made me think of today’s world’s famous K-pop: it could be Cambodian Rock and Roll winning over the planet if it wasn’t for that tragic historical accident.

What I definitely want to take from this amazing film, is the overall directing. Apart from an incredibly meaningful topic, this documentary is very well made in terms of cinematography. I really enjoyed how the director managed to combine the feeling of warmth, happiness and music-filled freedom of pre-civil war Cambodia with cold silence and painful destruction of Khmer Rouge dictatorship. The constant contrast between colourful shots of smiling and singing people and gruesome shots of war enhance the experience and invoke empathy in a viewer.

Here is a trailer to get a general idea, but I would highly recommend to watch the whole movie. Its 1 hour 49 minutes manage to revive decades of forcefully silenced music.