Funan is a 2018 French-language period drama animated film directed by Denis Do.
It is set in Cambodia in the year 1975, during the beginning of the Khmer Rouge revolution. The movie centers around Chou, a young woman whose son got separated from her during the forceful evacuation of the citizens from Phnom Penh. Other characters include her family, such as her husband Khuon, her brother-in-law Meng, her mother, her grandmother (who went after her son and as a result, she is separated from them as well), and their other children Hout, Tuch, and Lili. What follows is a series of hardships forcefully implemented on them by the regime such as working in labor camps where they work to the bone with barely any food to the point of exhaustion and illness. But through it all, Chou and Khuon never stop looking for their son.
The film is based on the director's own research and the memories of his mother, on whom the main protagonist, Chou, is based.
Compare the live-action movie First They Killed My Father, in which it is set in the same year and also deals with the Khmer Rouge regime, but from the point of view of a child.
Provides examples of:
- Based on a True Story: Partly as it was also based on the memories of the director's mother.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. As life becomes more difficult for the family, Chou shows signs of visible malnourishment, such as weight loss. The end also reveals that the hair she keeps under a makeshift turban has become short and thin, indicating hair loss because of poor health.
- Big Damn Reunion: Downplayed. Khuon and Chou manage to track down Sovanh at a children's camp. Khuon embraces him, as Chou can only get down on her knees and lower her head. The parents are both too exhausted to feel joy, while Sovanh seems to not recognize them at first.
- Bittersweet Ending: More on the bitter end as Chou's entire family do not make it throughout the course of the film, either due to illness (Tuch), suicide (Lili), starvation (Chou's mother), going missing (Meng and Chou's grandmother), or getting killed (Hout and later her husband, Khuon). Only she and her son, Sovanh, manage to flee to Thailand hand in hand.
- By the Hair: One Khmer Rouge soldier pulls Chou by the hair to stop her from leaving the group to find her son.
- Censored Child Death: Sovanh's friend is last seen about to be caught by the Khmer Rouge for stealing food, and, while it's not said if they killed her, it's very clear that she was punished severely for it since she's not seen again after that.
- Child Soldiers: Glimpses of Sovanh's experiences while his parents are looking for him show that he's being trained to become this along with the other children.
- Death by Despair: Chou's mother expires from a combination of starvation and heartbreak after seeing her daughter hang herself.
- Dirty Communists: The Khmer Rouge. Working people to death, recruiting child soldiers through propaganda, killing anyone who opposed them (to the point that the body count reached millions by the end of their rule)? "Dirty" is too generous a term.
- Face Death with Dignity: Khuon closes his eyes and accepts his fate when he is about to be shot by the Khmer Rouge. At least he died knowing his wife and son are safe.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- Every time anyone is killed like Hout and an innocent old woman believed to be an accomplice. The only time this was sort of averted is during the near ending where a woman stabs a man through the stomach and they show the blade going through his flesh.
- A non-fatal version was done on the family's car when a Khmer Rouge soldier tells them that owning property is capitalistic then they proceed to smash the car in front of them. But we only hear the sounds while Chou and Khuon avert their gaze.
- The film thankfully cuts away when Lili is raped.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Heavy rain clouds come in when Tuch finally passes from his sickness.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Khoun's cousin Sok kills one of the other Khmer Rouge guards who caught Khoun and Chou outside the camp, thinking they were trying to escape. He stays behind and is killed by another Khmer Rouge guard who happens to be the brother of the guard Sok killed.
- The girl Sovanh made friends with lets herself be caught when she and Sovanh were stealing food. It isn't shown but it's heavily implied she is killed.
- Khoun lets himself be chased and killed at the end, allowing Chou and Sovanh the chance to make it to Thailand.
- I Owe You My Life: Khoun saves Peuv, the daughter of a Khmer Rouge rebel, from drowning. Later, as a thank you, she sneaks food for Chou and her family, which Chou rejects to keep her dignity. Later, when Khoun and Chou use the Vietnamese attack to escape, Peuv sees them hiding but does not alert the other rebels to their location. When Chou and Khoun find Peuv about to be killed by a mob, Chou convinces them not to.
- Kill It with Fire: Hout traps Lili's rapist and another guard in a hut, spills some alcohol on the door, and sets it on fire with the guard's cigarette.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": At one point, the Khmer Rouge force the exiled people to walk across a river loaded with land mines. While a few of them go off, Chou’s family makes it through safely.
- Miscarriage of Justice: An elderly woman ends up being executed alongside Hout when the guards accuse her of being his accomplice in the murder of two Khmer Rouge guards. Though Chou is present and successfully lies her way out of it, she is horrified nonetheless to see an innocent life get killed in her stead.
- The One Who Made It Out: Downplayed. Meng manages to flee the labor camp without getting caught, with Khuon wishing him luck. But his fate remains ambiguous, with his safety not fully ensured considering the Khmer Rouge was still going strong at the time of his escape.
- Rape and Revenge: Hout avenges Lili's rape (details below) and her resulting suicide by trapping the guard who's responsible and his unsuspecting comrade in a thatched hut and setting it alight. Hout is later killed for it alongside another woman who's accused of being a sympathizer.
- Rape as Drama: Lili is sexually assaulted by a Khmer Rouge soldier and her mother, believing that they can rely on him to help their family, tells her to stay with him and keep being nice to him. She commits suicide out of shame and much to her mother's misery.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Khmer Rouge soldiers wear black attire with red scarves or bandanas. They are also cruel and merciless to the people they force to work.
- Silence Is Golden: Many parts of the movie, especially those focusing on Sovanh’s experience away from his family, can go for a while without any dialogue.
- Sound-Only Death: Hout and an old woman (who is wrongfully accused of being his accomplice) are gunned down by a couple of Khmer Rouge guards for the revenge killing of another guard, who had raped Lili while Hout was separated from them. Though we see flashes of gunfire as Chou is Forced to Watch the execution unfold, automatic firing shots are also heard.
- Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: Chou's mother starves to death, implied to be due to the death of her other daughter, Lili, who hanged herself after being raped by a soldier. Not helping matters is that the last thing she told her is to stay with him to curry favors for the family.
- Traumatic Haircut: The women with long hair are subjected to have their hair chopped into a short bob. One of Chou's family members is visibly distraught by this.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: One scene shows a boy being forced by the Khmer Rouge to physically beat a poor man. The boy is even smoking a cigar as he is punishing the worker.
- Uncertain Doom:
- Downplayed. Chou's grandmother is last seen watching the ducks with Sovanh by the river as Khmer Rouge soldiers gather up blindfolded workers to a truck (one of the soldiers is seen brandishing a shovel while the other two are holding guns). Sovanh looks back only to see that his grandmother has gone, heavily implying that she's to be killed in a mass grave along with the others.
- Also downplayed. The little girl Sovanh befriends lets herself get caught for stealing mangoes while she pushes Sovanh away so he can evade capture. Her fate is unknown, but it's easy to infer what happened to her.
- The Voiceless: Chou and Khuon's son remains silent throughout the film except for one instance when he calls out "Mama" when his mother nearly falls while crossing a log during their escape.
- Youthful Freckles: While not a little girl, Lili is the youngest female member of her family and has several little freckles covering her face.
- Would Hurt a Child: It's also heavily implied that the Khmer Rouge would kill a child. Sovanh becomes friends with a little girl during his separation from his parents. She sacrifices herself when they are both caught stealing food. They do not show what happens to her, but she is never seen again, making it very clear as to her fate.
