Like Biennale of the Year approached their conclusionIts spaces began to change. The crowds thinned, the queues became easier, and the audience lost their first place for place and connected to their places. Soon the square will be empty and the projectors will be quiet.
It is the perfect environment to consider ”Become human” – an ode to these spaces and how they occupy our identities long after film terminated. The debut feature of Cambodian filmmaker Poland Ly, “Becoming Human” is executive produced by Community champion Davy Chou (“Return to Seoul”) and was developed through the festival’s development program for new filmmakers, Biennale College Cinema. Encouraged by workshops and a 200,000 euros contribution is the purpose of Biennale College Cinema to born new microb budget films. This year, the 14th edition of the company at the biennial marks. Ly’s Film was developed during last year’s edition.
At the biennial, the screening rooms are mostly silent, but the abandoned battambang theater in the center to “become human” is anything but. The control of traffic and pedestrians leaks into their auditorium, and rain drops down through the collapsing roof to the seats below. The screen is loose on one side and drapes on the floor – attractive but spooky, like a rolling vintage dress or a sculpture installation.
In this space Hai (Piseth Chhun) walks. He used to come here as a child, back when the movies were still playing. Hai is approaching this room as if it were a religious place. As he reaches the front of the booth, he stops to reflect – sing to himself – and lights a cigarette.
He is not alone here. A young woman, Thida (Savorn Serak), simply dressed and welcoming, works in the middle of the corridors. She tells Hai that she is the Guardian of Theater, a role she entered death. By continuing to protect the cinema, she is actively delaying her rebirth to a new life-a process as a debt collection type at the door is keen to move.
Both Hai and Thida’s home are facing destruction – his pagoda, her cinema – and the consequences of the Cambodian genocide The loom in their current life. Thida is facing a choice: stay with the cinema, or be reborn into a new human life, with new memories.
“Becoming Human” differs from other beloved works about the end of cinemas (most pertinent “goodbye, dragon inn”) by never seeing a movie projected there. Instead, the films are shared that Hai and Thida are reminiscent of short clips on Hai’s phone, which they look at sitting side by side in booths. It is a sweet factual recognition of our changed viewing contexts that embrace rather than judges.
Warm as their interactions are, Chhun and Serak’s dialogue have a self-consciousness that makes its nature as an executed script that is sometimes for the obvious duo’s environments feels richly alive, but their roles do not. It is a dispute that may be anchored in the nature of the film as a debut, but the thin drawn nature of these characters leaves us at an emotional distance that becomes a bigger issue in the film’s second act and thereafter. She, the cinema; He, the audience-dose cipher would be mandatory in short form, but when they carry a function they are just buoyed by their natural chemistry.
If the film’s first act was its own standalone card, it would charm and satisfy-Ly’s film determines its story identity in a secure capsule research of the place-but at thirty-minute brand, we leave the boundaries of the theater and go out into the world beyond. The Cambodian countryside is beautifully pushed and is made meditative and magical through textured sound design that celebrates the bio sound systems that the film will be presented.
The movie is about her, whoever she is or stops being. The resulting winding is nice, but much of the first plot is lost when the unique in the film’s concept is diluted. Reference is made to Thida who next becomes a custodian for another space, another world warning that remains in this world in human form, but these conversations do not feel anything but ordinary and everyday. Maybe, thinking about the film’s title, that’s the point. Whether you think these spiritual strings are delightful difficult or disappointing little will depend on your openness to a cinema who is pleased with suggesting its world rules rather than expressing them explicitly.
“Becoming human” wants to show you life outside the theater, but its directionlessness is growing frustrating. Nevertheless, lying slowly wakes through memory, identity and place the sensory pleasures from apichat pong weerasethakul and tsai ming liberation and brush the part of the brain that longs to consider why we sit here and watch. A welcome picture of a changing landscape from a new voice trying to put its mark on it.
Rating: B-
“Becoming Human” premiered at 2025 Venice International Film Festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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