The Killing Fields (film)

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The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields film poster
Directed by	Roland Joffé
Produced by	David Puttnam
Written by	Bruce Robinson
Starring	Sam Waterston, John Malkovich, Haing S. Ngor
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	2 November 1984
Running time	141 min
Language	English, French, Khmer
IMDb profile

The Killing Fields (1984) is an award-winning dramatic British film based on the experiences of the journalists Dith Pran, who survived the Khmer Rouge regime, Sydney Schanberg, and Jon Swain. The film, which won three Academy Awards, was directed by Roland Joffé and stars Sam Waterston as Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor as Dith Pran, Julian Sands as Jon Swain, and John Malkovich as Al Rockoff. The adaptation for the screen was written by Bruce Robinson for which he received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations as well as a BAFTA award.

Ngor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role; cinematographer Chris Menges won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film also won for Best Editing. The soundtrack is by Mike Oldfield.

In 1986, actor Spalding Gray, who had a small role in the movie as the American consul, created Swimming to Cambodia, an acclaimed monologue (later filmed by Jonathan Demme) based upon his experiences making The Killing Fields.

The film placed 100 on the BFI's list of the 100 Greatest British films of all time.

[edit] Synopsis

The film opens in May of 1973 in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The Cambodian national army is fighting a civil war with the Khmer Rouge (KR), communist separatists, a result of the Vietnam war overspilling that country’s borders.

Dith Pran, a Cambodian interpreter for New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg, awaits the arrival of Schanberg at the Phnom Penh airport when he leaves suddenly. Schanberg arrives after his flight is delayed for three hours and, irritated that Pran is not at the airport, takes a cab to his hotel. He and photographer Al Rockoff go to a downtown café. While they await their order, a bomb explodes in the square, killing several bystanders. Pran meets Schanberg at the scene and tells him that an incident has occurred in a small hamlet, Neak Leung; allegedly, an American B-52 has bombed the town by mistake.

Schanberg and Pran try to find transport to the site. A US Army Major, Reeves, refuses to let Schanberg accompany the detachment that will investigate the site. Schanberg also suspects that officials within the chain of command deliberately delayed his plane in Bangkok to keep him from investigating. The attaché at the U.S. embassy is also little help, only telling the reporter that the bombing was the result of pilot error and incorrect coordinates.

Pran is able to sneak himself and Sydney onto a police boat that takes them to Neak Leung. When they arrive, they find that the village has indeed been bombed and hundreds have been killed, with many more wounded, including women and children. Schanberg and Pran are arrested when they try to photograph the execution of two Khmer Rouge operatives by Cambodian army officers.

The US army arrives, having been brought by the Cambodian army, with the international press corps in tow, and Sydney and Pran are allowed to go free. Sydney comments angrily on how the army brought the press corps in days after the bombing so they would get the “sanitized” story. Reeves refuses to let Pran and Sydney return with the helicopter fleet. Upon returning to the capital, Schanberg is able to transmit the “true” story about Neak Leung to the Times.

The story moves ahead two years, to 1975. The international embassies are being evacuated in anticipation of an invasion of the capital by the Khmer Rouge, whose strength has gradually increased since the Neak Leung incident. Schanberg manages to secure evacuation orders for Pran, his wife and their four children, however, Pran decides to stay and help him cover the conflict. Pran’s family is evacuated with the other international diplomats, however, Pran is visibly upset at being separated from them.

The Khmer Rouge move into the capital, seemingly under a banner of peace. During a parade through the city, Schanberg, suspicious of the positive way the Rouge are being welcomed, meets Rockoff, who tells him that he’d just come from an area where heavy fighting was taking place. They go to a hospital where they find that civilians are being treated for horrible wounds caused by military combat. As they leave the hospital they are met by a detachment of the KR, who arrest them immediately. Pran is not allowed into the APC at first, but is able to bribe the KR leader by giving him his wristwatch. The group is taken through the city to a back alley where prisoners are being held and executed. Pran, unharmed because he is a Cambodian civilian, negotiates with the KR officer in command for several hours to spare the lives of his friends. They are set free, joining the thousands of refugees fleeing the capital. They do not leave Phnom Penh, but instead retreat to the French embassy and stay there for several days, awaiting their chance to evacuate.

During that time they are informed that the KR have demanded that all Cambodian citizens in the embassy be turned over. Fearing the embassy will be overrun, the embassy occupants comply. Knowing that Pran will become a prisoner or be executed by the KR, Rockoff and fellow photographer, John Swain, try to forge a passport identifying Pran as a British citizen. They use supplies they find in the embassy buildings, however, the age of the photographic paper they have causes the picture to fade. With no other options available, Pran is turned over to the Rouge and becomes a prisoner.

Several months after returning to New York City, Schanberg is in the midst of a personal campaign to locate Pran. He has appealed to many humanitarian organizations and has kept in close contact with Pran’s family in San Francisco. In Cambodia, Pran has become a forced laborer under the brutal regime of the Rouge and their new government, Angkar, that declares “Year Zero”, a return to the agrarian ways of the past. Pran labors in rice fields under the watchful eyes of young children whom the Rouge hold in high regard as the future leaders of their regime. Pran is also forced to attend propagandist classes where many proclaim their allegiance to Angkar through re-education. Pran’s voiceovers reveal that those who do so are later taken away and most likely executed. Pran feigns simple-mindedness to avoid the same fate that befalls intellectuals like himself.

Pran attempts an escape and is immediately captured. He is punished and tied to a tree for an indeterminate amount of time. Eventually, Pran tries to escape again and, although he makes it farther this time, he is again recaptured. Before he is found by members of the Rouge, he stumbles upon the infamous killing fields of the Pol Pot regime, where millions of Cambodian citizens were murdered as traitors to the new order.

Sydney Schanberg receives a journalism award for his coverage of the Cambodian conflict. At the acceptance dinner he tells the audience that half the recognition for the award belongs to Pran. When he visits the men’s room he is confronted by Al Rockoff who harshly accuses him of not doing enough to locate Pran and for using his friend to win the award. Sydney defends his efforts, saying that he has contacted every humanitarian relief agency possible in the four years since Pran’s disappearance.

Pran is assigned to the leader of a different prison compound, a man named Phat, and charged with tending to the his little boy. Pran continues his self-imposed discipline of behaving as an uneducated peasant, despite several of Phat’s attempts to trick him into revealing his knowledge of both French and English. Phat begins to trust Pran and asks him to take ward of his son in the event that he is killed. Angkar are now engaged in a new war with Vietnam over territory in eastern Cambodia. The conflict reaches Pran's region and a battle ensues between the KR of the compound and two jets sent to destroy the camp. After the skirmish has ended, Pran discovers that Phat's son has American money and a map leading to safety. When Phat tries to stop the younger KR officers from killing several of his comrades he is ignominiously shot.

In the confusion, Pran escapes with four other prisoners and they begin a long trek through the jungle with Phat’s young son. The group later splits and three of them head in a different direction, Pran continues following the map with one of them. However, Pran’s companion steps on a hidden land mine while holding the child. Though Pran pleads with the man to give him the child, the mine goes off, killing them both. Pran mourns for a time and continues on. One day he crests a mountain and sees a Red Cross camp near the border of Thailand. The scene shifts to Schanberg calling Pran’s family with the news that Pran is alive and safe. Soon after, Sydney travels to the Red Cross camp and is reunited with Pran. He asks Pran “Do you forgive me?” Pran answers, with a smile, “Nothing to forgive, Sydney, nothing.” The scene is set to the song “Imagine” by John Lennon.