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A movie review of “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll,” a documentary about the pop-music scene that flourished in Cambodia before the Communist killing fields.

“Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten,” a moving and informative documentary by John Pirozzi, takes its name from a hit song of the 1960s. The title may not ring a bell among Western audiences, though the tune itself might carry a sonic reminder of that era. Like almost all the music heard in the film, it was a product of the vibrant pop-music scene that flourished in Cambodia during the ill-fated reign of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The Cambodian musical culture that spawned the soundtrack of Pirozzi’s film was marvelously fertile, absorbing a wide range of Western influences and infusing them with traditional Khmer themes and singing styles. There were go-go bands and girl groups, crooners and bubble-gum divas, skinny suits and big hairdos, funk and psychedelia. But all of it proved tragically fragile, unable to withstand the forces of war and political fanaticism.

Because it concentrates on the music — interviewing surviving fans and artists, generously sampling old 45s and video clips — “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten” offers a fresh and powerful account of Cambodia’s painful history. Like Rithy Panh’s “Missing Picture,” a family chronicle of almost unimaginable suffering and loss at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Pirozzi’s film is an unsparing and meticulous reckoning of the effects of tyranny on ordinary Cambodians. It is also a rich and defiant effort at recovery, showing that even the most murderous totalitarianism cannot fully erase the human drive for pleasure and self-expression.

“Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten” is not exactly suspenseful: We know that the American bombs and the Communist killing fields are just over the horizon. But the filmmakers’ deft interweaving of old videos with recent interviews casts an unusual spell. The pop stars are so vivid — Ros Serey Sothea with her passionate voice, the rebellious guitar hero Yol Aularong — that you almost believe they will somehow be spared, as if thefreedom they represent could keep the monsters of history at bay.

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