The Killing Fields (1984)

This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joffé, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. The late Haing S. Ngor--a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the events depicted by Joffé--is outstanding, and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oscars also went to cinematographer Chris Menges and editor Jim Clark. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

Chilling

At the time of release this was a shocker. Not many realised what genocide was. How this could go on without intervention by the wider world was disturbing. With the passage of time, and similar atrocities almost every day, it seems we have become sensitised. Worth viewing to remind us to be alert. June 18, 2008

The Khmer Rouge

A very good film, The Killing Fields, sheds light on the atrocities committed by the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during their reign of terror in the 1970's.
The film follows Dith Pran as he is left behind by his employer, an American reporter, only to be captured by the Khmer Rouge and subsequently experience what amounts to living a nightmare.
Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, and the rest of the cast, have carried out their performances well, nevertheless one cannot help but feel disdain for Sidney Schanberg (and by extension Sam Waterston) for preventing his assistant from reaching shelter when he could.
The acting, the setting, the plot, and the dialogues are all good though the movie could have done much more to show the Communists' sheer brutality. Moreover, there were quite a few dialogues not translated that left us in the dark.
In short, The Killing Fields is a movie definitely worth watching as it will surely provide good insight on one of the most infamous regimes of the twentieth century.
May 25, 2008

Confusing Message

This was a very moving movie and I couldn't turn away. However, the political message was bizzare. Sydney rails against the USA for its efforts in Cambodia and the bombings. But the USA was trying to stop the Communist KR from taking power. The ensuing horrific blood-bath is the consequences of the Communist KR taking power. So naturally the outrage should be focused on the Communists. If anything, the USA could be criticized for withdrawing and NOT bombing the Communists more extensively. Then the movie ends with John Lennon's love-letter to communism, "Imagine" Very confusing political message indeed. March 19, 2008

DVD Jacket for The Killing Fields

While the DVD itself is an excellent film - the DVD Jacket is of extremely poor quality - not what I expected at all.

It looks like a photocopy using very thin paper - not what one would purchase new from a store.

A real disappointment January 21, 2008

Did little to show the real scope of the horrors.

The film did not do nearly enough to show the real extents of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge holocaust of 3 million Cambodians that took place from 1975 to 1979, and obviously revelled in trendy lefty journalist Sydney Schanberg's blame of the USA for the Khmer Rouge genocide.
In his speech winning the 1976 prestigious journalist award Schanberg does not condemn Khmer Rouge atrocities but instead launches into a tirade against US policy in Southeast Asia.

Before the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975 and killed approximately 2 million people, Schanberg wrote positively in The New York Times about the coming regime change, writing about the Cambodians that "it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A dispatch he wrote on April 13, 1975, written from Phnom Penh, ran with the headline "Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life."
Did Schanberg ever apologize for such comments after the scope of the Khmer Rouge atrocities became known?
Did he shed his trendy lefty ideology that could justify or obsfucate such horrors?
I know that Noam Chomsky supported the Khmer Rouge terror (as he now supports such genocidal terror gangs as Hamas and Hezbollah) and never retracted or apologized.
The film showed only a tiny glimpse of Khmer Rouge atrocities. They did show something of the pain of Cambodia's children at the time. Touching scenes showing Cambodia's beautiful children. But not clearly enough did it reveal the maiming and murder of these children by the Khmer Rouge.
The one scene that did begin to show what the real face of Communism is about is the scene where Dith Pran, after having escaped from the Khmer Rouge concentration camp, comes across the field of human skeletons murdered by the Khmer Rouge.


November 25, 2007

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