Horrifying Story of War and Character.

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2011)

Sam Waterston is Sidney Schanberg, a reporter working for the New York Times in the midst of a civil war in Cambodia in the early 70s. His dedicated interpreter is Dith Pran. In and around the capital are a few dozen other reporters and diplomatic personnel, including photographers John Malkovich and Julian Sands. It's dangerous work.
Briefly, the Khmer Rouge win the battle for the country. The Westerners, towards whom the rebels have no reason to feel grateful, are penned up in the French embassy and finally thrown out of Cambodia. The Cambodians who have been associated with the West are sent to forced labor camps. They include Dith Pran, who has elected to stay with Schanberg because "I am a journalist too, Sidney." Waterston, Malkovich, and Sands try desperately to forge a passport for Pran but the attempt fails.
Pran is beaten and tortured and finally escapes from the camp, only to face even more appalling horrors on his trek to safety. Meanwhile, Schanberg collects prizes in New York while agonizing over Pran's incommunicado.
It's an outstanding film in almost every way. Haing Ngor won an award for his performance as Dith Pran and, in fact, he's quite good, stoic and frightened at the same time. But the story is Schanberg's because he's the person who has something to learn -- and learns it.
Waterston's handling of the Schanberg role is more than adequate. He's able to capture Schanberg's New England accent with no trouble. Waterston himself was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was graduated from Yale. But he does more than just play with a regional accent.
In the beginning, Shanberg treats Pran as a kind of lackey or gofer. The famous reporter for the fabled New York Times rushes from place to place, self absorbed, eager for the truth, while Pran is little more than an instrument to him. I'm surprised the movie is so candid about this.
At one point, the Khmer Rouge are about to roll into the Phnom Penh and Schanberg and the other reporters have decided to stay and cover the problematic event. Schanberg, busy typing, interrupts himself long enough to tell Dith Pran that people will be killed -- a lot of people -- and tells him to decide on the spot whether he wants to stay or leave. Arrangements have been made for Pran's family to get out but Pran himself is torn between his family and his loyalty to his profession as a "journalist", as well as his personal loyalty to Schanberg. He twists his hands and works his features for a second before deciding to remain behind. As a result, he is dropped into hell.
That basically is the first half of the film. The second half gives us a few scenes of Schanberg in New York shredding himself with guilt. But the focus is on Dith Pran's journey through the killing fields of Cambodia. He undergoes unspeakable iniquities. I won't describe them but I can say that the movie treats them with as much discretion as they deserve. The film doesn't wallow in blood. The final scene is sentimental but very moving.
Among its virtues we can say that the photography is unimpeachable, although what it sometimes shows us is revolting. The musical score by Mike Oldfield is appropriate and innovative. Especially effective is the percussive dissonance that accompanies the arrival of the last U. S. Marine helicopters that evacuate some of the refugees. Oldfield also gets the palm for introducing so many Americans to "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot," one of only a handful of arias that most of us will find familiar now. I can't say the same for John Lennon's "Imagine" at the end. I thought it was spelling out the obvious and I felt my basilar membranes wince a little. There were a few crying babies too many as well. Roland Joffe should have had more respect for his audience.
It's one of the most realistic movies about war than I can remember seeing, and not "brutal" in the usual sense of squibs exploding and bodies falling in slow motion. It's not that stupid. Sherman said, "War is all hell." True enough, for civilians as well as troops.