Feature film
Apsara
អប្សរា
Norodom Sihanouk · 1966
Synopsis
General Rithi, a rich and powerful man in the royal army, is having an affair with a young widow, Rattana, but falls in love with Kantha, a star of the royal ballet, on seeing her dance. Kantha loves Lieutenant Phaly, a young air force pilot, and finds herself caught against her will in a love triangle when the general intends to make her his wife.
Context
The author's first feature film and his first in colour, produced by Khemara Pictures and photographed by Sam Al Som, it was presented on 20 August 1966 at the Lux cinema in Phnom Penh. The prince wrote the screenplay, did the editing and cast his entourage in the roles: his daughter, Princess Buppha Devi, a dancer of the Royal Ballet, plays Kantha, and General Nhiek Tioulong, a former minister, plays Rithi; the singer Sinn Sisamouth appears in it. He wanted to respond to the image of Cambodia given the previous year by the Anglo-American film Lord Jim.
Who it is for
For those interested in Phnom Penh in the sixties and in the royal ballet, filmed by the prince himself.
Prizes and reception
Long thought lost and then found again, it ranks, according to the Cambodia Daily, among the prince's films best known to the Cambodian public.