Depressing and horrifying view of war in south-east Asia

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2000)

"The Killing Fields" is one of those movies that makes you, the viewer, want to go out and change the world. It's about the ethnic cleansing of millions of Cambodian citizens during the late seventies at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge party. Sam Waterson plays Sydney Schanberg, a famous reporter doing a war story on Cambodia. There in Cambodia, he meets up with Dith Pran, his interpreter and guide. Things turn ugly and the entire population of Phnom Penh is deported to the countryside. Schanberg arranges for the evacuation of Pran's family, but the two of them want to stay as reporters. But, sadly, Pran is taken from the embassy too, and Sydney is forced to leave Cambodia. Pran is lead to work in the death camps of the Khmer Rouge. The story continues on from there, but I don't want to give away the ending. This a beautiful and tragic film and I will remember it for years.