Sounds of Loss: Time and Displacement in Allison Chhorn's 'The Plastic House'

Playing out a narrative of imagined grief within the real-life settings of her parents' greenhouse and her bedroom, Allison Chhorn's hypnotic film is part immersive documentary, part allegorical self-portrait. As Susan Bye argues, the film's soundscape plays a central role in conveying liminality and threat, combining with its visual rhythms to constitute a work both Gothic and uncanny.

Additional keywords:
Gothic, Werner Herzog, Minnesota Declaration, Cambodia, Khmer, Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, grief