In search of missing images : performative reconstructions of memory

Bibliogr. s. 406-408

The starting point is the question of whether it is possible to visually represent unimagi-nable crimes, and whether film images can become part of the memory of genocide. An attempt to answer this question can be found in the work of Rithy Panh, especially in his film “The Missing Picture” (2013), which is an example of a discourse on memory – both individual and collective – in which autobiographical narrative is incorporated into a broader social and cultural context. Analyzing the reenactment strategies used by the Cambodian director, I draw attention to the way the past is presented through a series of still images with clay figurines placed in dioramas juxtaposed with archival visual ma-terials. In Panh’s film, reenactment does not serve to faithfully reproduce reality, but to create a theater of memory in which imagination aids history in saving the ephemeral from oblivion.