Review of The Killing Fields (1984) by Spencer S — 16 May 2011

The horrors of the Cambodian genocide became buried in the first hour and twenty minutes of background information on the conflict between a small group of journalists, eventually huddling in an American embassy, versus an emperging Khmer Rouge government hellbent on capturing photographer Dith Pran.

Thought to be benign, rebels overtake the government with the help of Americans, ignorant to their full power after the end of the Vietnam War. Not to say that these events were not important, but the film came across as more of a biography of Dith Pran, a captured Cambodian, then on the actual killing fields full of rotting corpses.

For the next hour the tumultuous record of exposure to the dictatorship based on genocide is captured by Dith Pran, working the fields, trying to escape without being killed by small children, the hierarchy of the system.

The ugly betrayal of humanity is alarming, not always documented by groups of people being slaughtered. It's etched across actor Haing S. Ngor's face as his mortality flashes before his eyes. My main qualm is the choice of music, which is either a reject 80's synth piece, or a racially insensitive set of bing bongs.

Plus, the last song played is "Imagine", which stinks of a tearjerker cliche.