In the first third of Until the Orchid Blooms, the documentary’s protagonist reminisces about the past of her beloved land. Back in the day, tigers and foxes were commonplace dangers. But traps were set, and today, she can go wherever she pleases. “I’m only scared of humans,” she says.
That’s one of two theses of this exploration of the way of life of the Kbal Romeas community, a group indigenous to Cambodia. The filmmakers open with the community adjusting to a new place after a flood has forced a recalibration of their lives. Some of people have moved away after receiving government compensation. The film is about those who stayed.
As with the rest of the community that has remained, Neang, the film’s protagonist, is adamant about staying and preserving the land of her ancestors. Which means going against land encroachers big and small. In one scene, she joins a group that nabs a logger armed with a tractor and chainsaw.
But in the grand scheme of things, he’s small fry and largely inconsequential. Sure, his tools can take down a decent number of trees, but there are two threats to the community, both of which are ideological. Ly is able to present both without explicitly naming either. Which is very impressive for a debut feature director.
The first of these threats is capitalism, as represented by a plantation company that is gobbling up land in chunks, despite the protected nature of the grounds. The other is modernism. Until the Orchid Blooms is asking, in part: Is there a place for the Kbal Romeas traditional way of life in today’s world? It’s an oblique question and director and cinematographer Polen Ly doesn’t provide the answer. Instead, the style of documentary deployed is the unhurried, minimally intrusive sort.
Neang and a couple of other people speak to the camera a few times, but the film mostly follows its subjects going about their day. And while the question of the viability of the community’s tradition stands as the overarching purpose of the film, there is a smaller, more intimate one concerned with Neang’s son. He’s away from his mother initially but he returns home, seemingly reluctantly.
From his exchanges with his mother and from her own recollection of their past, it appears he would rather see mother move away from the village. Thus, their own relationship is a smaller battle of tradition versus modernity. That’s a theme several films, documentary and otherwise, have covered. But by locating it in an indigenous community, Until the Orchid Blooms courts a kinship with The Territory, the 2022 Sundance documentary about the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people of Brazil.
For her part, the film’s preternaturally stubborn heroine is in the same sorority as the fictional older protagonist of Jeremiah Lemohang Mosese’s This Is Not a Burial, It Is a Resurrection, a Lesotho film that also shows a government representative stranded in the middle of a fight between technology and tradition.
A key difference between both films — besides the obvious geographical difference between Africa and Asia — lies in Until the Orchid Blooms‘ presentation of the ambivalence of a younger generation. It turns out that some of the young people from the community have taken up jobs on the same plantation that is encroaching on their people’s land. The pay is not particularly great but it is better than nothing. As one of the employed young men puts it, “What else can I do? I’m poor.”
The film goes on a bit after that statement is made. But make no mistake: that statement is the second thesis of this fine but occasionally draggy documentary.
Director, cinematography: Polen Ly
Producers: Lucas Sénécaut for L’Oeil Vif Productions, Thibaut Amri for Avant la Nuit, Rithy Panh for Anupheap Production
Editing: Penda Houzangbé, Jack Atmore
Sound design: Hugo Rossi
Venue: Singapore International Festival
103 minutes
In Bunong, Khmer
