Word: sihanouk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Royal Highness Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk Upayuvareach is a man of many parts, some of which he enthusiastically plays himself in his role as Cambodia's leading film maker. Last week he staged his nation's first international film festival, at which two of his full-length works, Shadow Over Angkor and The Little Prince, were screened, along with entries from 23 other nations...
Shadow opened the festivities in Pnompenh, and it was a tossup whether the credits or the plot were more interesting. The credits were relatively simple: Producer, Norodom Sihanouk; Director, Norodom Sihanouk; Scenario, Norodom Sihanouk; Dialogue, Norodom Sihanouk; Music, Norodom Sihanouk; Star, Norodom Sihanouk. The story line, on the other hand, was a bit more complex...
...film begins as a Cambodian counterespionage agent, played by Sihanouk, waits at the port of Sihanoukville to greet a lovely Latin American ambassadress, played by Sihanouk's half-Cambodian, half-Italian wife, Princess Monique. It soon becomes apparent that she is the unwitting dupe in a super-sinister effort to detach the nation's western provinces and thereby create a state allied to the West. (In that, there were striking parallels to an alleged anti-Sihanouk plot of 1959). Among the super-dupers are South Vietnamese intelligence agents, a corrupt Cambodian general, one of Monique's Latin...
...Given Sihanouk's off-and-on attitude toward the U.S., his handling of the prisoners seemed odd. In fact, he is simply adjusting his policies once more to the course of events in Southeast Asia. Initially, his price for releasing the eleven was high. But since the halt of American bombing of North Viet Nam, and the consequent feeling that peace is a few steps nearer, Sihanouk now says that the men will go free once he has received a note from Lyndon Johnson pledging that U.S. forces in Viet Nam will "do their best" to avoid violations...
...shift? Sihanouk is determined to ensure neutral Cambodia's survival, and he expects a unified, and probably Communist government in Viet Nam in the not too distant future. Traditionally, a strong Viet Nam has always meant trouble for Cambodia, and the Prince is now swinging toward the U.S. in order to preserve a counterweight to what he sees as the coming threat from the East. Thus the kindnesses toward the eleven G.I.s, whom Sihanouk seems increasingly eager to hand over. "Their stay is too expensive," he joked last week. "I have to pay for many good lunches for them...