My Mother is Arb
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''My Mother Is Arb'' ( km, កូនអើយ ម្តាយអាប,
UNGEGN The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) is one of the nine expert groups of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and deals with the national and international standardization of geographical names. Ev ...
: ; , also known as ''Krasue Mom'') is a Cambodian
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
. This film has the distinction of being the first movie made in Cambodia after the
Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...
era.


Background

This Khmer folklore-based movie was produced shortly after the fall of
Pol Pot Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist a ...
's destructive Democratic Kampuchea regime, during the painful rebuilding of Cambodian cultural life in the pro-Soviet
People's Republic of Kampuchea The People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; vi, Cộng hòa Nhân dân Campuchia was a partially recognised state in Southeast Asia supported by Vietnam which existed from 1979 to 1989. It was founded in Cambodia by the Kamp ...
. Since the Khmer Rouge had suppressed and persecuted Khmer folklore,Ben Kiernan, ''The Pol Pot Regime,'' 2d ed. Silkworm. this movie —which went back to the roots of traditional popular legends— became an immediate success with the Cambodian public after the long years of cultural uprooting. ''Kon Aeuy Madai Ahp'' is based on a
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
n myth about a malevolent spirit called ''Ap'' or ''Arp''. This spirit has a female head and bloody entrails instead of a body. It hovers over the ground in the night, haunting places and scaring people. The
special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...
of the Arp character was achieved by gluing pig's entrails to the head of a doll.


Plot

The film's story is about a young boy who lived alone with his mother in a big house on a remote location. One night he finds out his mother's well-kept secret by chance and he realizes that she is the evil spirit Arp. After that night, the boy lives in terror. He becomes afraid that his mother will kill him any time, but pretends that he does not know his mother's secret. The boy wonders what will become of him in the future, living with malevolent Arp under the same roof and what will happen if the secret becomes known and he hears everyone say: ''Your mother is an Arp''


References


External links


Cinema in CambodiaCambodian classics re-emerge
{{DEFAULTSORT:My Mother is Arb 1980 films Khmer-language films 1980 horror films People's Republic of Kampuchea Cambodian horror films