Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise

The film tells its more-than-real and painful story in almost unreal and serene images. The camera often stays at a respectable distance, emotions are not blown up. But this modest style makes the sorrow tangible.
The location is a brothel in Phnom-Penh, the much-plagued capital of much-plagued Cambodia. A group of young prostitutes are followed during their idle day. Their nocturnal labours are only implicitly mentioned. They hang around in their bedroom, chat in the kitchen, take their drugs. Their everyday life. Emptiness rather than rest, in lives afflicted by violence (by clients or pimps) and approaching death (from HIV infection). Shame prevents the women from returning to their villages, sorrow for the children taken away from them has made them apathetic.
The women live together in what is known as the White Building, a grey concrete giant that has seen everything. And just like the meticulous framing of the images, the building provides a skeleton for the film that has to bear great emotions. Because from childhood on, growing up in the shadow of camps and prisons, these women have always known what real sorrow is.
The obviously committed film maker sketches the lives of the fallen women with restrained fury. It’s not a pamphlet. It’s rather a document that gives the women a place in the history of their country traumatised by war and terror. (GjZ)