Movie Review: The Killing Fields (1984)

This was a movie which fascinated me when younger. Of course, the events were a whole lot closer back then, when I was a teenager. The horrific genocide in Cambodia of the late 1970's did not feel so long ago back then.

Now, of course, things have changed. Cambodia is a modern country, and a tourist mecca of sorts. My girlfriend saw a picture of Angkor Wat and said that we should go there and see it. Indeed, with Cambodia now having been a part of the overall conversion of Southeast Asia to have more modern economies - and again, friendly to tourism - it feels like the dark chapters of history regarding the millions dead from the Vietnam conflict and the millions dead from the Cambodian genocide are far, far away from modern realities. 

Yet, this history did actually happen. In fact, the main actor, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, had no acting experience. But he was uniquely qualified for this role, having himself personally survived the genocide during the days of the Khmer Rouge genocide. Ngor was a Cambodian physician, and again, had really no acting experiences. Still, he wound up winning an Oscar for this role in this movie.

What a story, huh?

For that matter, a lot of the acting extras also were survivors of the genocide. This movie was filmed in Phuket, Thailand, close to the Cambodian border, to lend the movie greater legitimacy and accuracy. It also allowed Cambodians who had escaped the genocide in nearby Thailand to take part in the movie, also lending their expertise. Again, this is not typical for a fictional movie, and gave this particular film greater legitimacy as the standard bearer of these actual historical events. 

Before I go on, of course, there should be the standard warning to stop reading if you intend to read this book, because there will be spoilers ahead.

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this movie already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning. 

So are we ready to talk in more detail about this movie? 

Okay, so as mentioned earlier, this movie actually portrays real-life people and events. The Killing Fields is about two men - Cambodian Dith Pran (played by Dr. Haing S. Ngor) and American Sydney Schanberg (played by American actor Sam Waterston) - who are in Cambodia in the mid-1970's, just before the takeover by the Khmer Rouge. They are reporters and taking chances trying to cover this story right up to the final moment of victory by the Khmer Rouge. Ultimately, they take too many chances, finding themselves in personal danger. The Cambodian ultimately is not allowed to leave, while the American, along with other Western journalists, do make their escape. So their friendship is torn by real-life events, as they are separated by the volatile situation in Cambodia at the time. 

The American, Sydney Schanberg, comes home and receives praise and journalist prizes for his coverage of what was going on in Cambodia. However, he has a guilty conscience regarding the mysterious fate of his Cambodian colleague, Dith Pran. Pran was, of course, left behind, and had to face the regime of the Khmer Rouge alone, after securing his wife and family safe passage to America.

We learn that Pran has been taken to the farm fields which pretty much everyone in the country now works. He has lost everything, and is trying to make every effort to hide away any part of his past that might give him away as a former elite. In Cambodia at the time, any level of real education or intellectualism was used against you, and made you a target of the ruling Khmer Rouge. Quite literally, it could get you killed. 

Pran sees the horrors unfolding in his country. There is no modern economy or conveniences. Instead, there is propaganda and ideology that is extremist even by comparison to other communist regimes of the time. For Pran, this has turned into more than a mere story. He is literally trapped in what seems almost like a country turned into one big concentration camp.

Of course, Pran knows that this is no game. That any mistake can cost him his life. This is a time of genocide in Cambodia, and that genocide now is generally regarded as one of the very worst in human history, which really is saying something. So Pran knows only too well that everything he does could mean life or death, quite literally. 

There are narrow escapes. Times when he himself seems sure that he will face execution. Yet, he manages to survive until the time comes when he knows he must try to escape. He does escape his immediate compound but then has to venture through this dangerous country to try and escape the horrors and reunite with his family. Almost through sheer luck, he runs into a man who seems suspicious that he is educated, yet who turns out to be on his side and helps him escape. But this man wants Pran to help his own son escape. Unfortunately, the son is killed when the other man trying to escape accidentally steps on a landmine. Remember, Southeast Asia at this time has been a war zone for quite some time. 

Pran does manage to escape, although it has come at quite a cost. He has lost years of his life in de facto slave labor conditions. He has been tortured and literally stumbled on evidence of some of the worst crimes against humanity in recorded history. And he has suffered tremendously by seeing some people he has grown close to killed. Yet, he does manage to escape.

When he finally does manage this, Schanberg receives word. He then travels to Southeast Asia to reunite with his friend Pran, as their personal ordeal regarding the Khmer Rouge is over. This movie not only tells their story, but also provides very realistic glimpses of the horror of life in Cambodia (which was renamed Kampuchea in those days) under the rule of the Khmer Rouge to the entire world. Since the country has been effectively cut off from the whole rest of the world by that point, this is almost the first time, really, that this story reaches massive numbers of people outside of Cambodia regarding the realities of life there in the second half of the seventies.

All in all, this is an excellent movie and I do recommend it. 

That said, this is not a movie for entertainment purposes. You likely will not enjoy it while kicking back with popcorn and a drink. This is a serious movie which documents the horrors of one specific episode in history, while also calling into question the Western response, especially the sense of hypocrisy of relatively wealthy, comfortable white people trying to get their stories (and their credit along with it) while seemingly allowing others to suffer. 

Again, though, a great movie and it comes highly recommended.