A family of fishermen, reliant on their river catches, find themselves
struggling to make ends meet with their increasingly meager returns. The oldest
son in the family skips school to help his father on the river, but ends up
leaving his village to work with a Chinese excavation company to help support
the family. In a village near Phnom Penh, a mother in debt sends her eldest
daughter to learn how to sew and work in the city sweatshops. We follow her
there, and it is revealed that many of her co-workers have also taken on these
jobs to support their country-dwelling farming families.
This raises some alarms about future generations of Cambodians, with
many that are barely literate forced to drop out of school and attain specific
skills to work from a young age. Their education levels are low, and in the
case of the subjects in this documentary they have sacrificed their own futures
for the sake of their younger siblings.
A River Changes Course is a powerful,
attentive and intimate look at Cambodian country living with subjects whose
livelihood and future is cause for concern. The admirable decisions made by these
families in the face of great agricultural change ensures the state of living
in this part of the world draws attention and will resonate with viewers.
My Rating: ★★★
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