The Search for the Necessary Utterance
An Encounter between Claude Lanzmann and Rithy Pan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46391/ALCEU.v25.ed57.2025.516Keywords:
Documentário, Khmer Vermelho, Memória, GenocídioAbstract
This article examines the encounter between Claude Lanzmann and Rithy Panh, based on their 2012 joint interview, in dialogue with Shoah (1985) and five films by Panh: S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2002), Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell (2011), Site 2 (1989), The Land of the Wandering Souls (2000), and Paper Cannot Wrap Embers (2007). The methodology combines close film analysis and critical engagement with existing scholarship, focusing on mise-en-scène strategies and the notion of the “necessary utterance.” The aim is to examine how their works articulate distinct modes of constructing testimonial spaces. The analysis shows that, while Lanzmann operates as an investigator eliciting speech, Panh shifts the locus of enunciation to the filmed subjects, developing a dialogical mise-en-scène. His cinema extends this search beyond genocide, engaging with contemporary social experiences and expanding our understanding of testimony.
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