"The Killing Fields" is the true story of journalist Sydney H. Schanberg's visit to Cambodia during the Vietnam War being waged just outside its borders, and his friendship with the local correspondent Dith Pran.

We begin with Sydney's arrival in Cambodia. His flight has been delayed, coinciding with a US Warplane dropping its entire load on a Cambodia village. He firmly believes that his flight was delayed deliberately to try and cover-up the attack. He also believes that the bombing of Cambodia was deliberately ordered by Nixon to subjugate the country's Communist rebels, and that the cover story about the Warplane becoming lost in Cambodian airspace due to faulty computer or human error is a total lie.

Whilst Sydney is there and he meets up with Dith Pran, the bombing has incited communist terrorists -the Khmere Rouge- to a violent uprising. Eventually the country falls to Communist dictatorship and Sydney and his fellow reporters are forced to leave, abandoning Dith Pran in the brutal regime.

“The Killing Fields” is a very, of-its-time movie- as much as a Vietnam film could be of its time when cinema had safely waited five years after the Vietnam War had ended before acknowledging Vietnam had ever happened. Starting with films like “The Deer Hunter” (1977) which had a middle section set in Vietnam and then “Apocalypse Now” was the first full length Vietnam adventure movie- films that have gone onto be considered major classics and have been embraced by my generation which never even witnessed Vietnam. “The Killing Fields” came out in 1984 and I’d say that unlike those films it is not a film that can be an independant document of the times that any old fool could follow and understand without reading much on the Vietnam or Cambodia subject.

“The Killing Fields” is a film that has a certain distance from the events. There is chaos and people being recruited to the khamer-rouge and gaining ground and heavy arms all over the country, but we spend most of the time in the Hotel where the journalists discuss what has been happening all over the country and listen to the news reports. But in the city they are in, we do see a little microcosm of what’s going on all over the country as cafes are bombed by khmere rouge terrorists, a few days later the Cambodian army moves in and publically executes suspects, and then the khmere rouge move in with tanks of their own and the fighting escalates and then we are taken to the local hospital which is crowded with war casualties and deprived of needed blood supplies.

We get a sense of what’s happening and why it is happening- Its presentation is pretty frenetic but the film content is much more cerebral than action orientated. Its a journalist investigation film far more than a war film -which suits the perspective of this British film since we were the casual observers of Vietnam rather than on the front lines (Yes Sydney H. was an American journalist, but he could easily represent one of our own British humanitarian left wing journalists of the period, such as John Pilger)- and basically we only see what the journalists see and that is why in watching the film you have to be very attentive. You have to listen very carefully to dialogue and even the background dialogue of the radio and other media within the film, keep a close eye on the soldiers and uniforms, watch out for red flags and bandannas onscreen to determine who’s on which side, and you’ll probably have to watch it more than once.

I respect that kind of film that doesn’t dumb down and repeat itself to its audience. The film knows its audience and expects them to keep up. It galvanises my smarts rather than simply educates me- it taxes my perception, my attention to details and my ability to connect the dots from there. Its an intelligent film, well researched in its facts and is educational about the whole Communist regime in a post-revolutionary third world country, not just about the executions and body mounds but about their “year zero” re-education policy and their crop controls to create a more dependant and loyal populace.

On a personal level, this is one of my top “comfort food” movies. The film is shown in very light and pastel colours- very blue and green and white, very natural greenery and skyline. Its a very calming and unassaulting hue and most of the scenes are set either in the Cambodian outdoors or at the very least an exposed room with open windows. People even dine in outside tables of the cafe and hotel. There's this wonderful refreshing sense of clean air, winds and respiration- the movie is breathing and we breathe with it.

This allows for contrast in the scenes of war and bombings- those scenes are intense and chaotic and the screen becomes one of orange firey images and breathes smoke, and the heavy gunfire really assaults the ears, as does the screams of terrified children on the flameing streets. The suspense conveyed by judicious editing and by the verbal confrontations at gunpoint between the Khmere Rouge and Dith Pran given in native language without subtitles, so we are captivated by the confrontations because we don't know what the characters must do to appease their captors.

But there is also contrast between the two halves of the film- the first half being when Sydney and Dith are together, and the second half being when they are separated as Sydney is forced to go home and Dith Pran has to fend for himself as the khmere rouge take over. When we are with Sydney there is a strange air of protection to him and all he is close to, whenever chaos errupts. There are always images of sanctuary, of public free reign, but when the communists take over and Dith Pran is alone the sense of sanctuary is gone, Dith has to hide and scavenge for refuge and shelter. The sunlight becomes harsher and more perpetual, the grisly images of bodymounts become more dominant, and images of Sydney's middle class life back home only add to the contrast.

Rather like the film "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence" its brutal and yet its focus is calm, its focus is on the friendship between two men. I feel in safe company when I watch this film. Sydney H. Schanberg can be an irritable camougen at times but is basically a very whimsical, noble humanitarian and a thoroughly loyal friend. He is a rich character, dedicated to exposing the truth about Cambodia and the real suffering caused by the American bombings that the sanitising general press turn a blind eye to, and determined to implicate Nixon in inflameing the khmere rouge guerilla violence. For me this isn't trendy 80's anti-establishment cynicism of the likes of Brian DePalma films, its one which makes clear the human choice to protest against the actions of your government and the aims of such protest and in that it is very human.

Some journalists would believe the cover story about the misplaced map co-ordinates and accept that these collateral accidents happen and not make a big thing out of it so as not to needlessly demoralise the people and the soldiers from their campaign that will eventually justify itself. Some journalists would simply wear the attitude of not trusting the government but never going beyond that popular label to really explore anything in it. Sometimes the news just seeks out bad news for its own sales and doesn't have any genuine political voice. But Sydney is a man of empathy who deeply cares much for the people of Cambodia and will never dismiss a single one of them as expendible collateral, he neither becomes used to seeing death nor becomes afraid to emotionally bond with a threatened people (some people lose all ability to empathise with others when they are afraid). He is also a historian minded humanist who believes in upholding and exposing the truth in every grisly detail as a warning from history, so that the American people realise what has been done and move them to get Nixon out of office and be more critical of warmongering presidents in the future so that this never happens again.

The other American characters are rich and explored well in their own ways. Al Rockoff (played by the legendary John Malkovich) is the fellow journalist of Sydney and of Dith Pran. We don't have high expectations of him when we first meet him and he is lazing around in bed, and yet he proves to be an extremely authentic and whimsical character with his own gifted intelligence and resourcefulness, but he is not infallible. He has great ideas for forging Dith Pran out of the country at the last minute and plans them through under pressure but something goes wrong by cruel reality. If this were a Hollywood fiction movie, his plan would succeed and he would be the main character. In-fact he truly considers himself a far more closer and loyal friend to Dith Pran than Sydney does. When Sydney is guilt wracked over leaving Dith Pran behind, Al does not give him reassuring cliches about how it wasn't his fault- like most Hollywood characters would. No, he actually believes it was Sydney's fault that Dith Pran became trapped in Cambodia and he does not bite his tongue about saying so in one of the most uncomfortable and emotional scenes of the film.

Dith Pran himself isn't really fleshed out too much. He just comes across as another stereotypical foreign pauper character of broken English and boyish innoffensive nature that we're told to feel sorry for. But he isn't excessively cliched to the point where you feel frustrated or feel a victim of heavy handed preachings. But still its a shame that he and his wife are the only fleshed out Cambodian character in a film about the plight of those people.

By completely dispensing with any subtitles, the film relies less on characterisation of the cambodian people and more on striking and unsettling images to communicate the environment and its horrors. There are one or two grisly and shocking scenes of body mounds and point blank gunshots to the face that create this important sense of fear and mortality and the volatile situation. The violence is infrequent and mostly tame elsewhere however, certainly when compared to "Platoon" or "Apocalypse Now"- I'd consider the film's content to be teen friendly. But what also makes for harrowing imagery is the sight of children in the conflict. We see a young toddler hiding behind a van on the street, covering his ears and screaming himself hoarse as the unletting gunfire rages around him. We later see a troop of Khmere Rouge soldiers surrounding our heroes with rifles and we close up on the youngest soldier who can be no older than ten, looking completely stern and trigger happy. We see children terrorised and probably mentally scarred, we see children brainwashed and corrupted, we even see children slain.

So what of the cons? Well certainly this film isn't as meaty or intense as "Platoon" or "Apocalypse Now", but I'm happy with that. Perhaps what does garner a complaint from me is that some of the incidental music is intrusive to the action and sometimes cripples the suspense. Also intrusive to the film was some of the profanity that Sydney's character used. I'm okay with profanity but to be honest here the swearing felt gratuitous and false and fortunately this is restricted to the earlier scenes so it doesn't intrude on the whole picture. But otherwise this is a very authentic and galvanising film with its own wonderful sense of hope. So I'll give it four stars.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older