Les Gens d'Angkor

This is not just one more of film about the monuments of Angkor, their history of their architecture. This film is about the people who live there. An inside view, in the shadow of the temples and the great kapok trees, an inhabited shadow that the world's tourists pass through unawares, wrapped up in contemplating the treasures of Khmer art. On the restoration site at Bapuon, a team of workers are assembling the scattered stones of ancient low relief. As though in an enormous jigsaw puzzle, al the history of the ancient Khmers is gradually being sketched in before their very eyes : from the myth of the creation of the world to the epic narrative of the great battles, with a tranquil evocation of everyday life and a hymn to the beauty of gracious Apsaras.
A young pedlar wonders what his future will be : he is too poor to go to school and he has not learnt to read. A former peasant, now a labourer on the restoration sites, feels he has been cut off from his land. He even misses the way he suffered when he worked the earth... Another peasant cherishes his fighting cock, dubbed "Lemon soup", which carries with it all his hopes. In the cod light of the early morning, monks meditate and pray on the stones of the temple, which though dismantled is still inhabited by the gods.
An another destinies, intersecting each other and coming together, finally portraying a story, like the stones of the ancient temple. A story of pain and hope, where the past and the present are intermingled, where the divine and human complement each other, and where humour enables people to express the anguish of survival, just as can transcend the contingencies of destiny.