My mother and her friend interviewed Dith Pran.

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2005)

When I was seven, my mother and her friend were working on a radio project about the Cambodian genocide, and they went to New York to interview Dith Pran. Through all of this, I learned about Cambodia. It wasn't until I was fifteen that I saw "The Killing Fields", and I was horrified at the Khmer Rouge's brutality. You can't even begin to imagine the awful things that they did until you see the movie.
I also read Haing Ngor's autobiography "A Cambodian Odyssey". What he experienced was basically the same as what "The Killing Fields" portrays. But the really surprising part is that of all the groups who were in power in Cambodia during Haing Ngor's life there, the Khmer Rouge were the most honest. The French were the colonizers, Prince Sihanouk was a royalist who suppressed the insurgent movements, Lon Nol was a military ruler installed by the CIA, and then the Khmer Rouge. When US planes started bombing the countryside after Lon Nol came to power in 1970, the Khmer Rouge explained to the Cambodian people what was going on. So, the people began supporting the Khmer Rouge. So whether or not anyone wants to admit it, the Khmer Rouge were driven to their actions (although that's still no justification for their atrocities).
The whole issue is so complex, that it takes a while to think about. But either way, you have to see this movie.