Review of The Killing Fields (1984) by Tomas T — 16 Dec 2012

The Cambodian genocide performed by the Khmer Rouge regime in 1970s - led by the infamous Pol Pot - has much been overshadowed by American's Vietnam War; However the fact remains that during it's brief regime from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one to three million (varies between sources) deaths by execution, forced labor, malnutrition etc. With the film The Killing Field, director R.Joffe attempts to capture the sense of chaos and madness of Khamer Rouge's violent reign.

The film is shot in documentary manner and tells the extraordinary true story of two reporters, Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), who reported of Cambodia events in 1975. The first part of the film follows largely reporter Sydney Schanberg and how he relentlessly pushed the boundaries of journalism to keep the world aware of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Cambodia. The second part of the film focuses on Dith Pran and the events that took place after the country's capital, Phnom Penh, was overrun by Khmer Rouce troops. While Sydney got evacuated with the rest of westerns when the capital was occupied, Dith Pran as a native Cambodian was forced to stay and survive the merciless reign of Khmer Rouge.

While the film's story is based on real events and tells about important subject, it failed to captivate me. This was largely due to the slow and rather uninspiring first part of the film with main focus on Sydney Schanberg. The film's interesting rate picks up greatly on the second part when the focus is turned towards Dith Pran and his amazing escape to freedom from one of the Khmer Rouge's forced labor camps. However it was bit too little and too late to restore my total complete interest with the film .

So in the end The Killing Fields is a about important subject, but as a movie it turned out to be rather heavy to digest and at times I felt more like watching a documentary than a film. Even so, what the film lacks in entertainment department, it certainly compensates with good acting by all actors involved and by shedding light on a largely neglected historical event, the Cambodian Genocide.