The place is Phnom Penh, 1979, immediately following the fall of Pol Pot. A grainy film shows a Czechoslovakian doctor walking through the debris around the deserted Central Market. Amid piles of shoes is a grandfather clock, evidently left standing in the street since the city had been evacuated four years earlier. He winds up the derelict artifact of a lost time and a chime rings out.
Viewers would be excused for believing they were watching genuine footage of Phnom Penh days after the city’s liberation. In fact, the Czechoslovakian-Cambodian production was made after the Vietnamese had occupied the city – but only just.

Forgotten for decades, the feature film NINE CIRCLES OF HELL (1988, 105 min) directed by Milan Muchna has finally been subtitled in English. Back then, it was the first Cambodian feature film screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Khmer with English subs. Free Entrance.