A Harrowing Story of Two Men in a War-Torn Land...

Rating: Null/10 (24 September 2011)

The Killing Fields is a remarkable film that shows the incredible cruelties of human beings in regard to their treatment of one another. The film begins in 1973 in Cambodia during the civil war in which the Cambodian national army is battling the communist Khmer Rouge party. The film centers around American reporter Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson) and his Cambodian guide and photojournalist Dith Pran (Haing Ngor) as they attempt to both cover the story of the conflict and survive in a treacherous war-torn land.
Before watching the Killing Fields, I was completely unaware and uneducated about the horrors of the Cambodian civil war. I have seen my fair share of war films; this one truly left an imprint on me. Although the movie is not told from a soldier's perspective, it does not lack the gruesome images or hardened emotions that war films typically present. It possesses moments of suspense, sorrow, empathy, and great tragedy. Sam Waterson is entirely believable as the determined New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg, but Haing Ngor is absolutely fantastic in his portrayal of Schanberg's Cambodian interpretor Dith Pran. The emotional torment that Ngor reflects as Pran, when he must choose between reporting the war with Schanberg and being with his family, is undeniably heartbreaking. The images of bloodied corpses, orphaned children roaming the streets, and the cultural upheaval that the country undergoes are presented realistically but in a cinematically breathtaking technique. The danger and suffering of the people due to the Khmer Rouge's purging of the urban and educated segment of society is presented so vividly that the viewer believes he or she is watching a true report straight from the newsroom.