The Killing Fields

Plot synopsis:
The film opens in May 1973 in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The Cambodian national army is fighting a civil war with the communist Khmer Rouge, a result of the Vietnam War overspilling that country's borders. Dith Pran, a Cambodian journalist and interpreter for New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg, awaits the arrival of Schanberg at the Phnom Penh airport when he leaves suddenly. Schanberg arrives after his flight is delayed for three hours in Bangkok, Thailand, and, irritated that Pran is not at the airport, takes a taxi to his hotel. There he meets Al Rockoff, his photographer. Rockoff doesn't know where to find Pran and suggests they go to a nearby cafe to eat. While they sit and talk, an explosion happens nearby. Al thinks a passing scooter's passenger threw a grenade, though the target isn't actually revealed. Pran suddenly arrives and tells Schanberg that an incident has occurred in a remote town, Neak Leung. Allegedly, an American B-52 has bombed the town by mistake.After talking to the United States Consul at the American embassy and finding out that the reports about Neak Leung are true, Schanberg and Pran try to find transport to the site. Pran is able to sneak himself and Sydney onto a police boat that takes them to Neak Leung. When they arrive, they find that the town has indeed been bombed and hundreds have been killed, with many more wounded, including women and children. Schanberg and Pran are arrested when they try to photograph the execution of two Khmer Rouge operatives by Cambodian army officers. They are eventually released and Schanberg is furious when the international press corps arrives with the U.S. Army to report a sanitized version of the story.The story moves ahead two years, to April 1975. The international embassies are being evacuated in anticipation of an invasion of the capital by the Khmer Rouge. Schanberg manages to secure evacuation papers for Pran, his wife and their four children. However, Pran insists that he stay with Schanberg and help him continue his war coverage. Pran's family is evacuated with the other international diplomats.On April 17, the Khmer Rouge move into the capital, seemingly under a banner of peace. During a parade through the city, Schanberg, suspicious of the positive way the Khmer Rouge are being welcomed, meets Rockoff, who tells him that he'd just come from an area where heavy fighting was taking place. At a makeshift hospital they see the result of the fighting; many children and other citizens are injured by shrapnel and gunfire. As they leave the hospital they are met by a small unit of Khmer Rouge troops, who arrest them immediately. Pran is at first not allowed into the armored personnel carrier with Schanberg, Rockoff, Swain and their driver, but he is able to bribe the Khmer Rouge leader with his wristwatch. The group is taken through the city to a hidden courtyard where prisoners are being held and executed. Pran, unharmed because he is a Cambodian civilian, negotiates with the Khmer Rouge officer in command for several hours to spare the lives of his friends. They are set free, joining the thousands of refugees fleeing the capital. They do not leave Phnom Penh, but instead retreat to the French embassy and stay there for several days, awaiting their chance to evacuate.During this time they are informed that the Khmer Rouge have demanded that all Cambodian citizens in the embassy be turned over. Fearing the embassy will be overrun, the embassy occupants comply. Knowing that Pran will be imprisoned or killed, Rockoff and fellow photographer Swain vainly try to forge a passport identifying Pran as a German citizen. Without a current picture of Pran, they use supplies they find in the embassy buildings; however, the picture fades because of the poor quality and age of the paper they use. With no other options available, Pran is turned over to the Khmer Rouge and is forced to live under their totalitarian regime. All of the foreigners whom include the French, American, and most others are then expelled from Cambodia.Several months after returning to New York City, Schanberg is in the midst of a personal campaign to locate Pran. He has appealed to many humanitarian organizations and has kept in close contact with Pran's family in San Francisco.In Cambodia, Pran has become a forced laborer under the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" policy, a return to the agrarian ways of the past. Pran labors in rice fields under the watchful eyes of armed young children of both sexes, whom the Khmer Rouge hold in high regard as the future leaders of their regime. Pran is also forced to attend propagandist classes where everyone undergoes re-education. As intellectuals are singled out and murdered or made to disappear, Pran feigns simple-mindedness. Eventually, he tries to escape from his work camp, but is recaptured. Before he is found by members of the Khmer Rouge, he stumbles upon the infamous "killing fields" of the Pol Pot regime; endless acres of bones and blue plastic bags (used for suffocation executions) where millions of Cambodian citizens were murdered by the new order.Flashing forward to 1979, Sydney Schanberg receives a journalism award for his coverage of the Cambodian conflict. At the acceptance dinner he tells the audience that half the recognition for the award belongs to Pran. In the mens room, he is confronted by Rockoff who harshly accuses him of not doing enough to locate Pran and for using his friend to win the award. Schanberg defends his efforts, saying that he has contacted every humanitarian relief agency possible in the four years since Pran's disappearance. Rockoff suggests that Schanberg subtly pressured Pran to remain in Cambodia because Pran was so vital to Sydney's work. This accusation hits close to home, and Schanberg begins to wonder whether he put his own self-interest ahead of Pran's safety. He finally admits that Pran "stayed because I wanted him to stay."Back in Cambodia, Pran is assigned to be the assistant to the leader of a different prison compound, a man named Phat, and charged mostly with tending to his little boy. Pran continues his self-imposed discipline of behaving as an uneducated peasant, despite several of Phat's attempts to trick him into revealing his knowledge of both French and English. Phat gradually begins to trust Pran and asks him to take ward of his son in the event that he is killed.By this time, the Khmer Rouge are now engaged in a war with Vietnam. The conflict reaches Pran's region and a battle ensues between the Khmer Rouge of the compound and the invading Vietnamese troops which are supported when two Vietnamese fighter jets are sent in to destroy the camp. After the skirmish has ended, Pran discovers that Phat's son has American money and a map leading to safety. When Phat tries to stop the younger Khmer Rouge officers from killing several of his comrades, he is ignominiously shot.In the confusion, Pran escapes with four other prisoners and they begin a long trek through the jungle with Phat's young son. The group later splits and three of them head in a different direction. Pran continues following the map with one of them. However, Pran's companion steps on a hidden land mine while holding the child. Though Pran pleads with the man to give him the child, the mine goes off, killing them both. Pran mourns for a time and continues on.One day he crests the escarpment of the Dangrek Mountains and sees a Red Cross camp near the border of Thailand. The scene shifts to Schanberg calling Pran's family with the news that Pran is alive and safe. Soon after, Schanberg travels to the Red Cross camp in Thailand and is reunited with Pran. Asking Pran to forgive him, Pran answers, with a smile, "Nothing to forgive, Sydney", as the two embrace.John Lennon's popular song, "Imagine" plays over the scene and during the end credits, which show actual photos of the real Pran and Schanberg.

Tags: dramatic, violence, historical, murder

Review:
Rating: **** Out of ****Hard to say, but I believe when it comes to the war genre, The Killing Fields manages to edge out even Saving Private Ryan, and without a doubt, there's no better war film out there that's done a better job of capturing the realistic details and emotional loss of the time period (that being, the 70's in Cambodia/Vietnam).Thus, I've always considered it a little odd that no one I know has even heard of this film.
Ngor as Dith Pran, the Cambodian journalist assisting the New York Times reporter played by Waterston during the conflicts in Cambodia around the time of the Vietnam war.
First of all I love this genre of movie; I'm not a huge fan of action or fantasy or romance movies, I have so-called "comedies" but I love genuine FILM, as in FILM not MOVIE; art as opposed to enterprise.This film, The Killing Fields, is one of the defining films in it's class; based on the true story of an American journalist (one Sydney Schanberg) working in Cambodia and his guide/interpreter; a Cambodian named Dith Pran.
The movie weaves a wonderful tale of adventure, misadventure, loss, suffering, death, and reunion (in no particular order).This movie is so beautiful and touching (and so very graphic) that one cannot help but be affected by it; a must-see, one of the defining movies on the subject of war as well as loss and certainly the most evocative film about the Khmer Rouge and the Viet Nam War in Cambodia.
Thought-provoking war-drama based on the memoirs of N.Y. Times correspondent named Sidney (Sam Waterston) and his relationship to journalist assistant and guide named Pran (Haing S Ngor ) .
Ngor a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the deeds depicted at the movie , he became the first Southeast Asian ,and the first Buddhist, to achieve an Oscar ; furthermore also first film for John Malkovich who makes an awesome portrayal as intrepid photographer .
The planned relocation to the countryside resulted in the complete halt of almost all economic activity: even schools and hospitals were closed, as well as banks, and industrial and service companies.During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state (including intellectuals or even those that had stereotypical signs of learning, such as glasses) and killing many others for even breaching minor rules .
This film, however, packs the kind of punch that isn't explained away by political trendiness."The Killing Fields" is a great film that tries and succeeds in capturing much of the carnage and tragedy of Cambodia as the radicalized Khmer Rouge and the U.S.-backed regime of Lon Nol controlling Phnom Penh clash in a fight to the death to be/not be the next domino in the Communist rollover in Southeast Asia.
By particularizing the conflict to that of the true-life relationship of two men, New York Times reporter Syndey Schanberg and his Cambodian apprentice and aide-de-camp, Dith Pran, the film forces a level of empathy that is at once uncomfortable and absorbing.
Murray Abraham for "Amadeus") is one of those perversities of film history, given he carries more of the film than Waterson (who slinks to the background two-thirds of the way in) but also that he personalizes the story in a way that makes the incomprehensible immediate and involving.We lost Ngor to a senseless murder a few years ago, and have little left to explain what was going through his mind as he relived an experience that cost him his wife and child when he actually lived through it.
At one point, trying to convince him to come aboard, Joffe said something about Ngor owing it to his country to bear witness to his story, and that of Dith Pran, and that did the trick, though Joffe seems to wonder if the same sort of manipulation Schanberg pulled on Pran wasn't going on here, too.It's a great movie because it doesn't shy away from uncomfortable truths, because it never loses sight of the human dimension, and because it gave a pretense of understanding to one of the great human traumas after World War II.
Well I can agree, that the lyrics of "Imagine" in the context sound like a Khmer Rouge anthem, but the rest is beautiful (Oldfield did a good job).The scene when Schanberg watches some TV programme about the Cambodian War while listening to Puccini's opera is so moving, just like the sight of thousands of Cambodians being "evacuated" by the Khmer out of Phnom Pehn.9/10.
Each and every component combines together to form not only a hard-hitting political statement, but also a focus on a deep and pure friendship.Images of the injured, bloodied, distraught and destitute, leave lasting effects and obviously prove uncomfortable to watch sometimes, but they put us in the positions of the journalists who were stepping into the war zone of Cambodia at the time.
However it is John Lennon's Imagine, played in the final scene, that encapsulates the message of the film and provides a subtle yet powerful ending.All the cast excel but it's Sam Waterston and Haing Ngor who particularly shine and make their characters' relationship seem completely believable.
The acting is superb by all degrees, in fact, the main actor Dith Pran (real name Haing S Ngor) has actually been through the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.
Before watching the film for the first time over 20 years ago, I had only a disjointed view of the horrors perpetuated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
British director Roland Joffe chose the latter approach for his masterful yet brutal 3- time Oscar-winner, The Killing Fields.Starring a then-unknown cast, Sam Waterston plays with conviction real-life "New York Times" reporter Sydney Schanberg who is covering the civil war in Cambodia, putting the story ahead of his life.
Most know of the Vietnam War, but almost only half of the world still remembers what Cambodia went through during Pol Pot's heinous ethnic cleansing of the people with the help of his brutal regime the Khmer Rouge.
The film follows American photographer for a US newspaper who is stuck in the country following the Khmer Rouge's take-over played by Sam Waterston, however it is the second and most frank viewpoint of character Dith Pran portrayed by real life Khmer Rouge survivor Haing S.
This is the most powerful film i have seen.The depiction of Cambodia in this movie has given new meaning to brutality & hope.The evil of Khmer Rouge has surpassed the evil of even the Holocast.Brilliant performances from both Sam Waterston & Haing S.
Ngor.Oscar worthy roles.Masterful direction by Roland Joffé.His work is commendable.The killing fields is the story about struggle of a man caught up as a slave in Combodia,his struggle,his survival & finally the triumph of the human spirit over all hatred.This is a very touching film.Killing fields has given a new meaning to International cinema.Motivational Flick.And wow!!!John Lennon song in the end sets your mood on the right path.Must watch..
Some Cambodian locals who have sought refuge in the French Embassy in Cambodia are forcibly trapped in the whole drama, including Dith Pran, who is there to assist Schanberg.The rest of the story focuses on how Schanberg is feeling guilty about letting Pran stay on with him and how Pran attempts to survive amidst the Killing Fields created by the Rouge.What this film doesn't quite clarify are the intentions of the Khmer Rouge itself on which the whole films seems to build its premise.
There is chaos throughout the film, so there isn't really any clear explanation given for the whys and the hows and the whats in this supposedly powerful drama.Sure, there are a lot of gut-wrenching scenes in this war-fest, but since we who are newly being introduced to the Khmer Rouge history aren't really told the inside story, it is difficult to relate to any of those who are mercilessly disposed of!
Ngor and a fine supporting act in an early role by John Malkovich, but that is just not enough to save this film based on a strong true story."The Killing Fields" is a film begging for a remake, with hopefully a more focused script..
The Killing fields takes the great tragedy of Cambodia and America's involvement in its fall all the more harrowing and comprehensible by centering its story telling on two men, one American and one Cambodian.
The American is a journalist for (if I recall correctly) the New York Times, while the Cambodian is a local colleague name Dith Pran (played by a real-life escapee from the killing fields).
The early stages noisily illustrate the collapse of Cambodia under the strain of American interference aimed at supporting the South Vietnamese government climaxing in the chaotic scenes at the American embassy as the American journalist tries and fails to get his colleague onto the helicopters to safety.The emotional heart of the movie is, however, the quieter second half as Pranh faces the deadly "re-education camps" and finally escapes to freedom.The Oscar winning cinematography is excellent but the film just fails to make it into the "great" category due to a slightly stilted script and (despite nominations for both leads - and a win for Haing Ngor as supporting actor, when he was actually lead) acting.Well worth your time and money, especially if you can see and hear it on the big screen..
This touching film is (the true story) about journalist Sydney Schanberg and his Cambodian interpreter Dith Pran.
Caught up in the chaos of the American bombings and the Khmer Rouge, Pran eventually has to struggle just to stay alive.This movie deserved every Oscar it won for its year (1984).
What was taken away after a viewing of The Killing Fields is not any sort of empathy with those poor Cambodians or the plight of Dith Pran, but a genuine hatred of Roland Joffe for believing his audience is made up of moronic dolts so ignorant and unsophisticated that they need to be told that the insanity and murder on display is a very bad thing.
The facts that the film is not based, but an actual true story, coupled with the knowledge that star Haing S Ngor was an actual Khmer Rouge prisoner, makes it impossible to turn away from the screen.Sam Waterston's performance as the determined turned guilt-ridden reporter Sydney Schanberg is good, but the show belongs to Ngor whose compelling performance gives us not only a person we care about but also a realistic, real human being, thrown into horrible circumstances of outside causes.
This movie takes us to 70s of Cambodia, let us know how vulnerable Cambodian government and US against Khmer Rouge, makes us witnesses of violence implemented by Khmer Rouge, we also can see two brave men, one of whom is Cambodian Dith Pran, how they are disciplined and workaholic even under these circumstances.Although Haing Ngor hadn't had acting experience before, he performed intermediate level of acting.
The film tells the story of American journalist Sydney Schanberg, who was reporting in Cambodia during the Vietnam war.
Sydney befriends a Cambodian journalist and interpreter Dith Pran and both men see the country become war-torn and then see the Khmer Rouge become truly brutal against the people.
The film's central pivot is the friendship between New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S.
Schanberg is practically powerless to aid his friend, who faces a perilous task in escaping Cambodia's Killing Fields.The direction by Roland Joffé along with the Oscar-winning cinematography by Chris Menges bring the story to vivid life.
War violence is shown accurately and 'The Killing Fields' is ultimately a story of human survival.Please watch if you have any interest in war movies.As doctor/survivor/actor Haing S.
On the one hand, it's based on a real story worth being told and overall a solid drama.That said, I couldn't help myself but notice some flaws that keep THE KILLING FIELDS from being a truly great film.
Joffé could have definitely laid more focus upon this horrifying part of the story.Nevertheless, I suggest seeing THE KILLING FIELDS - not least because of it being one of only a hand full of films covering the Khmer Rouge subject..
The tension mounts so well in the second half because we know, as capable as Pran is at thinking on his toes and acting quickly, he's up against a truly formidable, horrifying presence in these soldiers, all trained to the gills for brutal executions.If there is a political message it comes in a rather operatic moment: Sidney is back in New York and watching what looks like a primitive version of a VHS tape of some old news broadcast; it talks about Nixon's message to the American people about what the plan was for Cambodia, and how it was not the bill of goods he was selling.
The 1975 collapse of Cambodia and subsequent 're-education' of its population (through brainwashing and genocide) by Khmer Rouge insurgents is reconstructed through an unlikely but true friendship between two journalists from opposite ends of the globe: hard-nosed New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg and his resourceful Cambodian counterpart Dith Pran.
In a basic sense, Utopian iconography of an "untouched paradise" has been replaced by standard war genre codes; an un-Earthing of the truth after a prior stance has been just been deconstructed, the film itself a documenting of the atrocities that occurred within the nation of Cambodia between 1973 and 1975, and whose opening from the lead wonderfully ties in with his own experiences as we observe him at various points in the film try to uncover the truth about an event, within an event.Roland Joffé's quite wondrous film covers the true story of a man, an American journalist, named Sydney Schanberg here played by Sam Waterston and his friendship with several other men of western origin as well as native Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran, played by the Oscar winning and now tragically deceased Haing S.
The film is a taut, mediative piece on one's actions and the decisions one makes in the heated coven of wartime whilst battling on the front-line, not as soldier with a gun but as a journalist with a camera, and how these shape the immediate situation as well as how these decisions made come to affect those involved years later; the centrepiece of which is a harrowing race against time when several characters are holed up in a building located in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, as a man's life seems hours away from being ended due to incoming dangers.How it came to that is a tale altogether; the resulting misadventures born out of it additionally something else with the story of two men coming to understand one another under intensified circumstances the film's first port of call.
But the film is less bothered with the politics than it is of the true story of these two men linking up; Schanberg's relationship with Pran, like Pran's characteristics in regards to his own natives The Khmer Rouge, is in stark opposition to that of his getting along with The American Government, whom he berates from the beginning and clashes with on a number of personal and political points.
'The Killing Fields' is about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of three journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran, American Sydney Schanberg and Briton Jon Swain.Now, 'The Killing Fields' is a really violent film.
The film's first 2/3's chronicles the journeys and friendships of two journalists, Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Dith Pran (Haing S.
It is a story  combined with the Vietnam War and two journalists who have to fight their way through Cambodia at the time of the Khmer Rouge and the fall of Penom Penh.
The film depicts the relationship between New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (played by Sam Waterston) and his Cambodian interpreter, fellow journalist Dith Pran (Portrayed by the late Dr. Haing S.
It's a true story, focusing on the experiences and friendship of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg, played by Sam Waterston, and Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, played by Haing S.
Interesting true story of friendship and survival, set against the backdrop of one of history's most oppressive regimes.Set against the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, the true story of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg (played by Sam Waterston) and his Cambodian interpreter Dith Pran (Haing S Ngor).
Haing S Ngor, a Cambodian doctor and refugee with no previous acting experience, gives a great performance as Dith Pran and well deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
This Academy award-winning film, made in 1984, tells the true story of an American newspaper journalist, (Sydney Schanberg) and his Cambodian Assistant, (Pran) before, during and after the takeover by Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge regime.The film is beautifully directed, shot and acted and it accurately portrays a truly harrowing and heart-breaking period in Cambodia's recent history.
In 1973, New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) goes to cover the war in Cambodia with Dith Pran as his interpreter.
Roland Joffe directed this powerful true story about New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg(played by Sam Waterston) who is covering the Cambodian Civil War in 1975 with the help of local journalist Dith Pran(played by Dr. Haing S.
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.
A visceral, kinetic and exciting film from Roland Joffe (whatever happened to him?).Set against the bloody backdrop of Cambodia during the civil war that saw the surge of the Khmer Rouge, "The Killing Fields" tells the story of an interpreter (the non-actor Haing S.