15:07, b&w (tinted sepia), silent, with French intertitles
Production : Pathé-Revue
Source : Gaumont-Pathé archives
A very well-made but anonymous film that follows the elaborate series of ceremonies were involved in the funeral rites of Sisowath, the King of Cambodia.
The intertitles explain that after the body of the deceased king has been lying in state for seven months in a golden urn in the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh, the rites associated with his cremation should bring public mourning to an end, and even be a cause for celebration since the deceased king’s spirit will be ‘rejoining Buddha in paradise’.
The film then shows the golden urn being transported to the royal crematorium, followed by the new king, Sisowath’s son, Monivong, and vast crowds, including columns of elephants. Here the urn remains for another seven days while monks recite prayers.
The flesh of the corpse is then carefully separated from the bones and taken to the Silver Pagoda to be cremated in the presence of Monivong and his invitées, who appear to include some French officials. The camera does not follow the separation of flesh and bones, but it does offer a close up of a small open container where the flesh is smouldering. While ‘the fire does its work’, as the intertitles put it, outside the crowd prays and musicians play sacred music.
The bones are then cremated in turn in a more public ceremony and the following day, again accompanied by his invitées, Monivong washes the ashes and then carries them down to the Mekong, where they are carried out in a canoe to be thrown into middle of ‘the sacred River’, thereby liberating the former king from all his earthly attachments.
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