A Spell-Bounding Account.

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 2011)

The Vietnam War was a very trying time for Americans and citizens of Southeast Asia. What most people—like myself—didn't know is that the war and its Communist beliefs spilt over into Cambodia. The Killings Fields (1984) was an Academy Award-winning movie that showed the strife that Cambodians endured during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and how two journalists documented it. The movie begins in 1973 with the arrival of American journalist, Sydney Schanberg, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He and his partner/translator, a Cambodian journalist named Dith Pran, set out to cover the ongoing civil war between the current Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge, a Communist regime that is beginning to take over. They risk their lives numerous times, including an attempt to visit Neak Leung, a town that is accidentally bombed by American forces. When the Khmer Rouge eventually takes full power in 1975, Pran is taken to work at a concentration camp as a field worker and Schanberg evacuates to America. Schanberg then begins a successful personal campaign to locate Pran. The movie ends with Schanberg and Pran reunited and Schanberg is awarded for his coverage of Cambodia. The Killing Fields is an incredible movie that should be viewed by all generations to come, for it shows how inhumane people are in this world and how there are some people dedicated to exploiting them. I believe that this movie relates to students at Emerson College because we are known for breaking boundaries and being very accepting of people from all backgrounds. Watching The Killing Fields would help to become further aware of the atrocities committed against humanity and how we can try to prevent them.