‘France Is Our Mother Country’ Is a Sharp Archival Tour of Cambodia’s Colonial Past

Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh is one of the great experimenters, tackling the topic of his nation’s history from every conceivable angle. He’s made vérité documentaries, narrative features and films that blur the line between fiction and nonfiction. His last film, the Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture, used clay figurines to reenact scenes from the v…