Review of The Killing Fields, directed by Roland Joffé

There was a period of time where I was seriously interested in Cambodian history and the genocide that had happened under the Khmer Rouge. I had never ever learned about Cambodia or its history in school, and I think the very first time I had stumbled upon it was through this mini documentary that had been aired on YouTube.

In it, the documentary describes this television show that airs in Cambodia that’s solely geared towards tracking down family members that had disappeared during the genocide and reuniting them on live television.

The family featured in the documentary had moved to the United States, and the television producers had found not only the mother’s missing sister, who she thought was the only survivor, but also the mother—who they both presumed was long dead.

After that, I went deeper into learning about Cambodia and its people.

I attended a panel at AWP, the writers’ conference, on Cambodian diaspora writers who were chatting through their writing and thinking about their trauma, and at the end of that year, I was sitting in the couch thinking about what I wanted to watch that day. I decided to open Kanopy and there it was in front of me: The Killing Fields. So I pressed play, and here we are.

I’ve rambled enough already. Let’s get into the review!

The story of one journalist’s survival of the Cambodian Genocide.

There are obvious trigger warnings attached to this review, as it’s about the genocide, and I think it’s important to note that the characters are real. This is based on a very true story.

The film begins in 1973, in the capital of Cambodia. The national army had just engaged in war against the Khmer Rouge, who are trying to take control of the country and turn it into a communist nation (air quotes around communist here).

One of our protagonists in Dith Pran, who is a journalist and interpreter working with The New York Times. He is waiting to meet reporter Sydney Schanberg when her arrives in Cambodia, but leaves.

When Schanberg arrives in the country, he goes to the hotel and realizes there was a bombing when Pran comes and tells him that.

Together, they go to town and confirm the rumor, and they witness two Khmer Rouge members being executed.

They are arrested when they try to take pictures of it, but are released. Two years pass, the international press arrives with the American army, but the capital is about to fall.

The embassies are evacuated, Schanberg is preparing to leave, but he secures safe passage for Pran and his family. Pran refuses, and says he will stay behind. The Khmer Rouge arrive, Schanberg is arrested, Pran negotiates them out of being executed, and they hide in the French Embassy.

But when the Khmer Rouge demands all Cambodians there be handed over, the ambassador does so.

They know Pran will be killed or sent to the camps if he’s given, and they try to forge him a British passport, but this fails. Pran is forced to go with the Khmer Rouge.

They make him do forced labor, attend classes on re-education, and he is forced to pretend to be simple minded because intellectuals are the first to go in these systems. He tries to escape at one point, but is caugh.

Schanberg, upon returning to New York City, tries his hardest to find Pran and even gets into contact with his family in the states.

He wins the Pulitzer Prize for his work in Cambodia, but he knows that Pran is a key part of the award and acknowledges him int he speech. After being confronted about this, he makes a terrible confession about how Pran only stayed because he was doing what he thought Schanberg wanted.

At the same time, Pran is taken to a different prison compound and, despite the higher ups trying to catch him as an intellectual, succeeds in pretending to be uneducated.

As the Khmer Rouge goes to war with Vietnam over the borders, Pran realizes the prison leader’s son has connections. When the guy is shot, Pran and other prisoners escape, where he ends up at a refugee camp in Thailand.

When Schanberg learns of this, he comes to the camp, and Pran tells Schanberg he forgives him.

Overall Thoughts

This is a movie that tells a very specific story, one that is lowkey very eighties in the way that it has to center an American perspective to try and tell the whole story of the Cambodian genocide.

In some ways that is fine, but others might prefer movies like First They Killed My Father to explain the missing pieces, as it is a Cambodian story through all the way without outside influences in the narrative.

I can see how Ngor took home the Oscar; his performance was incredible despite having no acting experience.

Having been forced to live through the events shows how one, never having acted before, can channel that specific moment and emotions —it’s like the acting equivalent of write what you know.

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