9 mins., b&w, silent.
Source : this film can be viewed on the web here. It can also be seen as part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection at the NAFC, where it is available as part of the film AS-89.2.1 Cambodian Dramatic Dances, which also includes a dance based on the legend of Prince Chey Chet and the jealousy between his two wives, described here.
This film shows a performance by the Royal Cambodian Ballet – evidently in the grounds of the ancient palace of Angkor Wat – of the legend of the elopement of Prea Somut with the Princess Bustumali. The performers are from a hereditary cast of dancers and as was customary, they are all prepubescent girls, even those performing the male roles. This appears to be an informal performance put on at the request of the filmmaker, Ananda Coomoraswamy : the dancers are relatively few in number and there is only one player of an accompanying xylophone.
The film was shot by Coomaraswamy himself, as the opening titles reveal. Though the resolution of the image is a little murky, the technical quality is reasonable for the period, with a variety of shots. It follows the story of the legend with the aid of inter titles which have clearly been produced on a typewriter.
This is one of a series of films that Coomaraswamy made in the course of a trip around various Asian countries accompanied by his then lover and later wife, the dancer Stella Bloch, an American of Polish-Jewish heritage.
The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here.
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