On January 27th Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, a documentary about the history of Cambodian rock and roll, was screened at The University of Michigan Art Museum. The event was hosted by the Center for South Asian Studies and the student-run radio station WCBN.
This documentary was produced in 2014 and directed by John Pirozzi. Going into the film, I expected it to be no more than a detailed summary of the Cambodian rock scene. But it proved to be much more vital, thoroughly interweaving Cambodia’s music history with the history of its people, politics, and national hardship.
The documentary picked up from the 1950s, a time in which the Cambodian music scene thrived and musicians were experimenting with different styles. Latin, American, and French music in particular had a huge impact on the musicians of this time, particularly on those rooted in rock music.
Although the film’s title refers exclusively to rock and roll, it presents a variety of types of Cambodian music. The musicians interviewed described how Cambodia’s pop music often has a yearning, melancholy tone. The lyrics are poetic and incorporate cultural and self-reflective meanings, despite seeming purely romantic on the surface.
However, Cambodia’s music scene transformed entirely during the Vietnamese War in the late 1960s, when the US began to bomb neutral Cambodia in an effort to weaken North Vietnamese supply lines. The rock music became more raw and unruly. Cambodians lived in fear and many did not dare to leave their homes to attend live performances, so several popular musicians lost their audience. Later on, as Cambodia became involved in the Vietnamese War, their music became increasingly dominated by nationalistic sentiments.
Immediately after the war, Cambodia’s Communist regime Khmer Rouge took over the nation and killed millions of intellectuals and artists who were considered to be a possible threat. This included the majority of Cambodian musicians and their families. “If you have to eliminate the values from a society,” said one of the musicians, “you have to eliminate the artist.”
The regime was overthrown in 1979, and the documentary finished on a hopeful note by playing singer Cheam Chansovannary’s “Oh! Phnom Penh,” a song about Cambodia’s capital which was emptied by Khmer Rouge, while showing footage of people returning to their homes in Phnom Penh.
The documentary did a wonderful job portraying the legacy and resilience of musicians through these historical events. It was thorough without indulging in excess detail. The combination of live performance videos from the time and recent interviews brought the history to life with a remarkably personal narrative. Additionally, the film was beautifully shot and edited. Its smooth transitions into different topics and time periods offered a seamless and continuously engaging narrative. Although the film was only two hours long, it brought three significant decades of Cambodia’s music and history to life.
