Les quotidiens de la catastrophe : dispositifs documentaires contre l’oubli (Rithy Panh, Wang Bing)

Abstract

The latest films by French-Cambodian documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh (The Missing Picture, 2013; Exile, 2016; Graves without Names, 2018) use the material of everyday life, daily activity and the trivial to tell the historical event of the genocide. Since 2005, Chinese documentary filmmaker Wang Bing has been meeting with the survivors of the Jiabiangou labor camp. The editing of this testimonial material into several film projects (Fengming, a Chinese Memoir, 2007; The Ditch, 2010; Traces, 2013; Dead Souls, 2018) focuses on the ordinary experiences of prisoners from 1957 to 1961. These two documentary approaches have in common the desire to shed light on the unspeakable through the exhibition of a daily life of the catastrophe. This article will seek to grasp the enunciative, ethical and scenic stakes of the different mechanisms put in place by these two directors. The reconstruction of everyday life thus appears as a place for the invention of dialogical forms, a tool for measuring the catastrophe and a strategy for diverting the historical illegibility of the place.

Keywords

• memory
• daily life
• Rithy Panh
• Wang Bing
• disaster.