“I am the owner and heir of my karma,” intones the zen-like neural scientist Vattanak Sovann (Sahajak Boonthanakit) as he prepares to experiment on his own brain in the spooky opening scene of Karmalink, a brash hybrid of near-future sci fi and timeless Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation. The surprising thing is how engrossing it can be, thanks to the conviction of its youthful cast (ten-year-olds and early teens) and the vigor of its filmmaking. Opening the Critics’ Week at Venice, a section that spotlights first films and new talent, Karmalink is a bubbling cauldron of ideas bound to delight young people who are grappling with questions like “Who am I?” and “Where do I come from?” It marks the feature debut of California-born director Jake Wachtel who, after teaching filmmaking to kids from underprivileged backgrounds in Cambodia, used many of his students as actors in the film.
The setting is an out-of-control technological future that’s just around the corner, a world where even slum-dwellers and street kids have casual confidence with computer chips and find the answer to every question by conjuring a transparent computer screen in front of them. But the real novelty of the day is “augmenting”, a cross between a memory-altering drug injected with a needle and a round artificial eye you stick on your forehead, allowing a computer to see what you see. Like other recreational drugs, it has its users and abusers. The former include the hero Leng Heng (Leng Heng Prak), a bright and thoughtful boy whose large family lives in abject poverty in Phnom Penh, and the U.S. trained refugee researcher Vattanak, who wires himself up to an electrode cap operated by the glamorous Dr. Sophia (Cindy Sirinya Bishop) in an attempt to trace his memories back through his past lives.
Wachtel, who wrote the film’s ambitious screenplay with Christopher Sean Larsen, aims very high indeed, in a story that is not only challenging and mind-bending but compassionate. Cinematographer Robert Leitzell foregrounds the filthy black slums littered with industrial trash. (Production design by Olga Miasnikova is chock full of fantasy.) Leng Heng and his friends live on the fringes of the city, while Phnom Penh’s silvery white skyscrapers gleam in the background like some unobtainable dreamscape. The social divide is emphasized by the imminent relocation of the poor folk to new homes some ten miles outside the city limits. Leng Heng’s outspoken mother (Sveng Socheata) gives the real estate developers a piece of her mind. But this neighborhood disaster is just one thread of a complex social portrait.
Things get off to a fast and adventurous start when a desperado (Ros Mony) from olden times robs a pagoda of a golden Buddha statue. He is surprised by the temple priest, who sternly warns him they will meet again. This turns out to be a vivid dream Leng Heng keeps having. He is convinced this dream reveals an event that really occurred in one of his past lives, just like he identifies with the rice paddy farmer who finds the Buddha under water in his field, and a little boy who hides the statue in a tree, just before he and his brother are strafed by planes in a wrenching scene that bring up memories of Vietnam.
Finding the treasure could take Leng Heng’s family and friends out of poverty, and with the help of the street girl Srey Leak (a formidable Srey Leak Chhith), he searches his memory for the place he hid the statue. The treasure hunt eventually brings him into intimate mind-contact with the great neural scientist Vattanak, who has literally dedicated his mind to the cause of knowledge and progress, and who holds the key to Leng Heng’s real identity.
No, it doesn’t all work. There are times when the film feels like a hodge-podge of ill-mixed ingredients and fanciful futuristic scenarios. But the acting is generally involving, particularly that of the two young leads who stay admirably grounded in their grubby social milieu. The pace is lively and the editing by Harrison Atkins and Stephanie Kaznocha is so fast it’s sometimes subliminal, as well as deliberately repetitive, as memories and dreams tend to be. Ariel Marx’s music is so variegated it’s hard to describe, like a clicking-clapping sequence that punches up the opening slum views, while at other moments it creates background atmosphere like a busy bee.
Director: Jake Wachtel
Screenplay: Jake Wachtel, Christopher Sean Larsen
Cast: Leng Heng Prak, Srey Leak Chhith, Sahajak Boonthanait, Cindy Sirinya Bishop, Ros Mony, Sveng Socheata
Producers: Valerie Steinberg
Executive producers: Todd Brown, Nate Bolotin, Joe & Freddi Felt
Cinematography: Robert Leitzell
Production design: Olga Miasnikova
Costume design: Olga Miasnikova, Evren Catlin
Editing: Harrison Atkins, Stephanie Kaznocha
Music: Ariel Marx
Sound: Vincent Villa
Production companies: Valerie Steinberg Productions (U.S.) in association with 802 Films (Cambodia), LittleBIG Films, Human Eyes Media
World sales: XYZ Films (North America), LevelK (international)
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Settimana della Critica)
In Cambodian
101 minutes
