Rithy Panh is the same age as Savannah, his film’s main character. Like him, he endured the Pol Pot regime as a child and many of his family were exterminated. Savannah, though deeply scarred, is bursting with vitality and boundless energy. Srey Poeuv wants to die, thinking she will never live down the humiliation of what she has become. “War drives people mad and shatters every kind of solidarity,” Rithy Panh reminds us. In this utterly fragile environment, he tells the story of a passion that leads the seeker of life to his death, and the seeker of death to live on with the memory of her love.