7PM: FEATURE FILM, SET IN CAMBODIA - Now and again, good-looking men and women in the entertainment industry decide they want to express themselves artistically outside of their recognized contexts. Matt Dillon’s CITY OF GHOSTS (2002, 116 min) is about a con artist who must go to Cambodia to collect his share of money from an insurance scam. The film was made in Cambodia, in locations that include Phnom Penh and the Bokor Hill Station. Richly atmospheric and suspenseful, Dillon mingles history, cruelty, vitality and the enduring impulse toward love and decency in a story that contrasts deadly characters driven by greed with people responsive to love and family and trust. The tale unfolds in a setting redolent of ruin and war and faded beauty, and among desperate and deranged expatriates, conscienceless criminals and good people devoted to healing, religion and timeless virtues.
