Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock And Roll

Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man and John Pirozzi's Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll are documentaries about music that became contraband during two repressive regimes, South Africa’s Apartheid and Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge era. That’s about where the similarity ends. Searching for Sugar Man concentrated on Sixto Rodriguez, an American singer and Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, currently playing at Film Forum, deals with an idyllic period of Cambodia’s early independence from French rule when Western influences from France’s Johnny Hallyday, to Afro-Cuban, Santana and even Wilson Picket intermingled with a burgeoning Cambodian pop culture. That culture produced crooners with names like Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea, Pan Ron and Mao Sereth  who dominated the Pnom Penh musical scene. King Norodom Sihanouk, who ruled the country during those alternately repressive but culturally halcyon times, was the Maecenas of Cambodian art and created an atmosphere which allowed Cambodian music to move away from its purely traditional roots and  participate in the tidal wave of 60’s rock. “When we were young we loved being modern,” is one of the first testimonies of the film which highlights a music that was characterized by a realism extraordinary even in the age of rock. “Please stop asking about your father,” begins one lyric, ‘he’s a womanizer and an embarrassment.” The Radio Diffusion Nationale Khmere which had broadcast Cambodian rock silenced it when the Khmer Rouge came to power in l975. Searching for Sugar Man was also different from Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten in that the form it took was that of a mystery circling around the whereabouts of the elusive Sixto Rodriguez. There’s no mystery about what happened to Sinn Sisamouth and his pals. Most of them were murdered.

The Legend of Apsara Mera

Every traditional martial art deploys katas which are combat against an imaginary opponent. Katas distill fighting style in such a way that aggression is transformed into beauty, which takes the form of choreography. And katas also comprise a narrative usually concerning a series of struggles or obstacles that are overcome. In this sense many katas resemble ballets and operas. Imagine Wagner's Ring cycle as simply a very complex kata with an orchestral accompaniment! The Royal Ballet of Cambodia’s  “The Legend of Apsara Mera,” which was recently performed at BAM reflects both the Eastern tradition of the kata, turning martial arts technique into dance movement while also displaying the leitmotifs of the fertility cycle, the relation between god and man, the search for immortality and the mythical origins of a civilization that are characteristic themes of Western opera and classics of enthno-anthropology like Frazier’s The Golden Bough. Indeed the final section of the opera which concerns the wooing of the goddess Apsara Mera by Prince Kambu presents the myth of the founding of the kingdom of Cambodia. For a country that has had its share of revolutions, the costume design of the ballet, with its shimmering gold mail, which seems to defy gravity, revolutionizes one’s view of antiquity. The current production was choreographed by Her Royal Highness Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, the daughter of the late King Norodom Sihanouk. One wonders if his mythic and embattled reign will someday be represented in the repertoire of the company.