To Rosa

If you would like to witness the forces of colonialism in brute action, Rithy Panh’s extraordinary new film provides the long view. A masterpiece of editing, the film assembles archival footage and antiqued title cards into a wordless recapturing of the Indochinese Empire, beginning with the early days of French occupation. In this prelapsarian age, everything is golden with promise. Ladies, in empire waist gowns and enormous hats, throw candies to local children. Great steamships carry French culture abroad, and the Tricolore flag flies on high.

Immortality and eternal life: Will this great human dream come true? In any case, cryonics is making ever greater progress, human cloning no longer seems impossible and research is being carried out into the digital reproduction of the brain. Taking stock in the USA, Canada, Europe and Russia. The documentary delves into a world in which all-too-human people refuse to simply be wiped out by death. It shows how difficult it is to resist the promises of eternal life and also highlights the economic interests behind such endeavors. Google's push is just one sign of a possible two-tier society of the future: on the one hand, the rich who have access to such "offers", on the other, the rest of society.

A young man makes a living by selling drugs in a back alley in Paris. His mother visits him as a ghost.