Funan

This is one of the most touching movies i have seen in a long time, I wouldn't call this a review, as i am not a movie reviewer. Just Watch it.

I was disappointed in several ways. First, the animation quality was poor flat 2-D resulting in this tragic event lacking/conveying emotion or connectivity to the people & environment. Second, the dialogue seemed too scripted & lacked critical emotion. Third, the movie conveys little to nothing of the horrific events that took place by the Khmer Rouge (largely funded out of China) in Cambodia during their four year terror ('75-'79). Imagine the over 1 million people being forced to drive, but mostly walk as they left the capital to work in manual labor, and during that time well over a million people died.

Compared to the actual remaining sites and exhibits in Cambodia today, this tragedy is a little bit too romantic, soft and European for the genocide committed by Khmer Rouge. However, the animation and story are well made and fitted to its theme. My reflection goes back to the historical Funan and Angkar states in Cambodia that rose and fell independently throughout more than 1000 years, and draws a conclusion that civilization is simply too difficult to sustain in a tropical rainforest.

Great background and setting drawing but not so great characters, beacuse the style feels like not in complete harmony with the rest of the image and story. Taking into account the type of story they are telling us, an undercooked or less detailed design would have worked better to me, leaving the only nice to see thing, the background, as the vanishing point for the viewer from the nightmare these people had to experience.

For those of you that want to know more about this historical event, i would recommend you this two documentaries; {S-21: the Khmer rougue killing machine} (2003) and {The missing picture} (2013),both directed by Rithy Panh.

Funan is a good film. It tells an interesting story and it has beautiful animation, but it had one glaring problem. It took little time to establish big moments. Some things happen so abruptly without notice, the exposition, for example. The movie is slow, yet it is so fast at the same time. There were so many instances in the film that could've been so much better. The execution could've been better, it could've created a more powerful narrative. Like for example, there was this really powerful moment at the end of the film and then it was just cut off by another scene and it ruined it. There were so many instances of this and it really bothered me. Besides that, it's fine. I rate Funan a 7/10.