Darkness of the soul

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2013)

Set in the former French colony of Indochina, The Killing Fields centres on New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, together with fellow journalistic aid and Cambodian national Dith Pran reporting on the military involvement of the United States in South East Asia in the early 1970s, Significantly, and the films main focal point, commentating on the latter stages of the Cambodian civil war. Due to the close proximity to Vietnam, and the United States wearisome involvement in the on-going communist and democratic conflicts in South East Asia, American foreign policy and public interest paid portentous attentiveness to the affairs of Cambodia.
The film is introduced at the time of America's covert aerial bombardment of Eastern Cambodian military targets following the communist guerrillas refusal to adhere to the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty. Zealous journalist Schanberg is eager to and hindered from reporting to the American public the trepidation caused by the American bombing. Succeeding this introduction, the film moves intensely to the 1975 evacuation of foreign nationals from Phnom Penh during the seizing of power by the totalitarian communists Kampuchea before focusing on the consequent killing fields caused through social transformation and the year-zero policy. The film's final act, following a left behind Pran's escape from a national forced labour camp, is the eventual reuniting of the two journalist friends. From one stand point, British director Ronald Joffe does not shy away from exposing the human atrocities caused by armed conflict. Yet, Joffe does not over-embellish the horrors that inhabitant's encounter in a war-torn Country. Particularly, The Killing Fields centrepiece is the acts of humanity both moral, relationship between close friends, and immoral, the killing of innocent civilians and possible to a lesser extent, the unintentional minor selfish betrayal of Schanberg towards Pran. Rather than taking a more dramatic conventional route, the films interesting aspect is to view from a pragmatic everyday journalistic media approach. Also, interestingly The Killing Fields is one of a handful of English language films to call attention the violence, economics and political ideologies of twentieth-century revolutions. The horrors of the Khmer Rouge and the story told in The killing Fields draws parallels with events in the 1930's collectivisation of Ukrainian agriculture, the Nazi Holocaust of World War II and Mao's Great Leap Forward in the 1950's, all of which resulted in systematic extermination.
Unfortunately I was unable to view the film in anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 format. Although not as detailed, viewing the film in standard format did not eradicate the intensity of the film. As well as a story of friendship, The Killing Fields is an exceptional example of a former colonial countries dilemma when faced with dissimilar political ideologies following independence. Furthermore, the indescribable torment citizens' encounter in a brutal civil war and the mass suffering during the course of inhumane social experiments and the forced undemocratic reorganising of a society.