Medusa on the Mekong

Here's something they don't teach in film school: how to make a motion picture in Cambodia, a war-ravaged country without such cinema essentials as, believe it or not, movie theaters. On top of that challenge, director Fay Sam Ang took on the additional burden of making a mythological film about a beautiful half-snake, half-human without the aid of digital special effects. Ang's solution: to glue live snakes onto a cap worn by his exceedingly cooperative leading lady, 17-year old newcomer Pich Chanboramey. "Sometimes the snakes would leap off her head," the director recalls, "and we'd have to chase them around the set."

The result is Kuon Puos Keng Kang, The Snake King's Child, one of the first major film productions in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Considering the recent history of the land of the Killing Fields, few countries have more stories to tell on film, but no one's telling them. Fay Sam Ang's film, which was released last month to coincide with the Year of the Snake—Cambodians also celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year—is designed to change that and spark a cinematic rebirth of what was once a thriving industry. "I think it will be a hit," says Sorm Sokun, director of the Ministry of Culture's film department. "If it is, we hope more people will want to make films."

Hollywood, in fact, has recently discovered Cambodia as one of the world's most exotic backdrops. The Angelina Jolie-vehicle Tomb Raider shot scenes in the magnificence of Angkor Wat last year, and Matt Dillon will begin filming Beneath the Banyan Tree in mid-February, which will mark his debut as a director. But Hollywood brings in all the talent and equipment it needs, and only has to do location filming in Cambodia's arduous conditions. Cambodian filmmakers hardly have that luxury.

In fact, the country once had a vibrant film industry, with studios churning out 50-plus films a year for local audiences. During the 1960s reign of cinema-loving Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Phnom Penh had more than 30 theaters, mostly showing local movies. Sihanouk himself, now the country's King, was an enthusiastic producer, director, scriptwriter, star and music composer. One of the era's classics was 1960's Puos Keng Kang (The Snake King) by director Tea Lim Kun, which retold a Cambodian legend of a peasant woman seduced by the king of the snakes.

Movies, along with most cultural activities, were proscribed in 1975 by the conquering Khmer Rouge. Hundreds of actors, writers and directors were executed. When the regime finally fell, the theaters slowly reopened and a brief renaissance followed, but the industry soon faced another threat: cheap Thai videos and television soap operas. Five years ago, the last commercial movie house in Phnom Penh closed.

In 1999, Fay Sam Ang decided to update Puos Keng Kang, and tried to find a copy of the original, but none was available in his country. The Khmer Rouge had destroyed them all. But Fay Sam Ang , like most Cambodians, knew the old Snake-Meets-Girl story. (In a memorable scene in the new film, a 4.5-m python borrowed from a local temple slithers on top of soap star Ampor Tevy and darts its tongue at her face.) The snake impregnates the peasant woman. Her husband returns from a trip, discovers her infidelity and slits open her belly, releasing hundreds of tiny snakes, which he tries to kill. But one slithers to safety. It grows into snake-girl Soraya, played by Pich Chanboramey. With a magic ring she can transform her Medusa-like locks into normal hair, but not forever. When Soraya loses her virginity, she is fated to change into a serpent forever. And then she falls in love ...

With no commercial cinemas in town, the film's distributors have had to lease the French Cultural Center and give outdoor viewings in the courtyard of a local television station. (The film opens in theaters in Thailand this month.) Cambodian audiences have been enthusiastic, and Ang is grateful the filming is over. Persuading Pich Chanboramey to don the hissing cap of serpents, he says, wasn't easy. "When she first saw the snakes, she cried and cried," Fay Sam Ang says. "But I told her she had to be professional. In the end, it was no problem. The snakes would just give her little kisses on the cheek." He's hoping audiences will be as affectionate.