Indubitably My Favorite Movie Of All Time

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 2003)

As the subject line reads, this is, without a doubt, my favorite movie of all time. Haing S. Ngor is simply perfect in the role of Dith Pran and there was no one could have played it any better. He captures the poignance of Pran's situation and exemplifies man's will not simply to survive, but to rise above. The love and friendships presented in this movie are touching, but never cliched. There are many scenes which are quite disturbing (among them, the employment of children as soldiers for the brutal Khmer Rouge) but none that are gratuitously so. Sam Waterston, John Malkovich, and Julian Swain give strong performances, and Monirak Sisowath's performance as a compassionate Khmer Rouge leader is usually overlooked, though Ngor is obviously the centerpiece of the entire film. Mike Oldfield's soundtrack is riveting and appropriately jarring, and it's a shame that Roland Joffe's subsequent films have failed to match the quality of The Killing Fields. The only criticism I can give is that a large part of the movie is in unsubtitled Khmer, and the viewer has to figure out what the actors are saying by context and body language. At any rate, I highly recommend that everyone see this at least once (though given the intensity of the movie, I can fully understand people who would not be able to sit through it again).