Watch The Killing Fields For Free

Lack of good storyline.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Well, casting Julian Sands was the right decision because you can't go through hell without something beautiful to look at. He's gorgeous! So, allow me to be shallow, because this film's set is entirely made of human bodies, dead, half-dead, dismembered, bleeding, rotting, sick children, dead children, wounded children crying and then there's mud, mud, mud, more mud and dirt... it's hell on earth. Yes, the film looks great, if you can stomach it, with the soundtrack that would make your hair stand on end. But, without the photojournalists in action, it would have been a little too boring. The most exciting scenes are the passport forging scenes. That one made me think - how I miss REAL MEN on screen. And in 'real life'. The four leading actors, Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich and Julian Sands all have such a strong presence. With each Haing S. Ngor closeup, I want to cry. Here is something real. I am sorry that journalism has since become a joke.

From Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated director Roland Joffé (The Mission, Captivity), this film features in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I didn't know much about it, apart from one of the cast members, so I just hoped it would be worth the five stars out of five critics give it. Basically in 1973, American journalist Sydney Schanberg (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Sam Waterston) is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, he has been sent to Cambodia to cover the civil war between the Cambodian national army and communists the Khmer Rouge, a result of the Vietnam War. Schanberg is joined by local representative Dith Pran (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Haing S. Ngor) as his guide and interpreter, they also meet a number of times with photographer Al Rockoff (John Malkovich), who gives them updates on the latest situations. Over the subsequent years Schanberg and Pran, with Pran's family, become friends, the bond between two men largely due to watching out for each other during potentially deadly situations. Schanberg is able to secure evacuation from the country for Pran's family, when western powers believe an escalation in the war will bring imminent indiscriminate bloodshed. The Khmer Rouge ultimately take over the country in 1975, Schanberg and other members of the western media make it out of the country in April, Schanberg returns to New York, but attempts to evacuate Pran failed, his life is in danger, every western-friendly Cambodian journalist captured has been killed. Schanberg leaves the U.S. begins what becomes a four and a half year campaign to get Pran out of the country, with no knowledge of the atrocities he may have suffered from the Khmer Rouge and/or their North Vietnamese allies, and no knowledge if Pran is still alive. This campaign for Schanberg ends up being a mission out of guilt, he feels largely responsible for Pran's predicament, he receives acclaim during his reporting of the conflict, in the end Schanberg calls Pran's family with the news that he is alive and safe, Schanberg and Pran reunite at the he Red Cross camp, they embrace with a hug. Also starring Julian Sands as Jon Swain, Craig T. Nelson as Military Attaché, Spalding Gray as U.S. Consul, Bill Paterson as Dr. MacEntire, Athol Fugard as Dr. Sundesval, Graham Kennedy as Dougal, Katherine Krapum Chey as Ser Moeum (Pran's Wife), Oliver Pierpaoli as Titony (Pran's Son) and Lambool Dtangpaibool as Phat's Son. Waterston gives a good performance as the journalist filled with both shame and ambition, Malkovich does well in his many moments, but the best performance is indeed newcomer and deserved award winner Ngor, at the time he was a gynaecologist and obstetrician, he is a fantastic embodiment of all emotions of the time, sadly Ngor was murdered in 1996. I didn't know anything about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia myself before this film, I read it was a genocide initiated by Pol Pot, it was also known as Year Zero, the film shows both the humanity and the agony of the time, based on the experiences of the real-life characters, the most gripping moments are obviously those filled with conflict and suffering, all in all I found it an interesting biographical war drama. It won the Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, and it was nominated for Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, it won the BAFTAs for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Most Outstanding Newcomer to Film for Haing S. Ngor, Best Production Design/Art Direction and Best Sound, and it was nominated for Best Make Up Artist, Best Score for Mike Oldfield and Best Special Visual Effects, and it was nominated the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Good!

In the Killing Fields, there may be some things politically that you'll either not be fully aware of going in, or need to be brought up to speed on. The short of it that I know for sure is that the Vietnam war didn't stay completely within its borders, but rather spilled over into Cambodia, with the kind of guerilla warfare being raged, but more crucially (along with Nixon's own butchery intentions) rival gangs and groups were looking to gain control - and all of this at the cost of thousands of lives, mainly civilians' lives. What's good about the film politically is that it doesn't ask you necessarily to take a big side on one or the other in the Cambodian conflict, except as far as Pol Pot making madness and chaos even more extreme, and that the violence of these street gangs made into larger forms was horrible. But what's even better is that the emotional core, the pathos, is strong: this is a movie about friendship (writer Bruce Robinson, coincidentally, would make another key movie about friendship in the 80's in Withinail & I, on a totally different context of course).The friends - one might almost say lovers in the non-romantic, heterosexual sense - is author Sidney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Dith Pran (Hang S Ngor, who won a deserved Oscar for his acting, which often feels very raw and wholly convincing, basically as though he was/is there). Sidney is there in Cambodia to get the scoop as a New York Times reporter, and not only won't soft-pedal anything, he despises the reporters sent/allowed in who will. Pran is nominally his translator, but he is a reporter as well (we don't see much of that aspect, but it's not difficult to see his serious intentions to get things down as they are). The two of them finds that they're stuck in the country as things become even more harried; the greatest tension and suspense of the film isn't even about being under the barrel of guns held by certain guerilla soldiers (though that's part of it) - it's simply how to get Pran out of the country.One may ask why Sidney just didn't get Pran out when he does, in fact, get Pran's family out. Maybe there was just more work to do. Maybe it was simpler that way and for Pran to stay it was necessary for the very on-the-street-on-the-run reporting that Sidney was looking for. But whatever the motivation, the centerpiece of the film for me all comes down to a photograph - this is what's needed for Pran to get a passport and go along with the Americans and French out of the country (it is explained why Cambodians can't leave, but it's not completely clear, or at much as it could've been for me). We see how Malkovich, as a photojournalist, takes the painstaking task of taking pictures on a beat-up, nearly broken camera, and has to develop the film in a very cramped bathroom with unlikely chemicals. It's not totally a spoiler to say it doesn't end up working - for half of the film, Pran is in a prison camp and it then becomes a 'how-does-he-escape' scenario - but this section is for me the most effective: trumping the violence of the world through the process of photography (if not art, then close enough), and just seeing the moment-by-moment events of that sequence is staggering.Of course, there's much violence here, and in a way this was a nice antidote to the barrage of mindless, at best usually guilty-pleasure action fare of the 1980's. Instead of something like Rambo 2, where one man goes in and single-handedly takes on the entire Vietnamese army, this is more like 'hey, you really have to be very, very careful here, because the one wrong thing said or done can get you shot in the head, immediately, or, if in prison, worse via torture'.Some of the events in the first act move rather quickly, but the important thing is that we get to learn who these people are, especially Sidney and Pran, and this is crucial for the emotional stakes: will they be torn apart, and if they are, can they reunite again? I kind of wish I hadn't looked up the trivia for the film ahead of time as I got in a way spoiled as the ultimate outcome (one hopes for the 'happy ending', though here that's especially relative). 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. One almost gets the sense that had Nixon really had his way, Pran could've been wiped out by a barrage of bombs. But, again, The Killing Fields is interested in politics only up to a point: the power of the film comes from its male bond, and its depiction of survival and how one can keep a head when surrounded by death and destruction. A very good film of its time, and it holds up extremely well.

Ironies abound in THE KILLING FIELDS. "Cambodia is the Nixon doctrine in its purest form," boasts one of the twentieth century's greatest war criminals (who himself lived a long and happy life, thereby putting the lie to any and all notions of karma). The Vietnam War, we're told, resulted in 3 million deaths (70-80% of all casualties were civilian). Does that total factor in the Cambodians who were murdered in the war's "aftermath?" (90% of all deaths in Iraq were civilian, by the way. Evidence has now come to light that the U.$. actually AIDED Saddam Hussein when he used chemical weapons against the Kurds in Iraq. That's right: the same government threatening to bomb Syria back into The Stone Age actually had an active part in the mass murder of Kurdish civilians. Or was it IRANIANS, during the Iran-Iraq War? "Six of one, half dozen of the other," U.$. politicos might say, but the distinction DOES matter, especially if you're Iranian or Kurdish... I may be wrong about the Kurdish murders, but I'm not going to change my comments until I see some paperwork showing otherwise. And there are 30,000 drones in the skies over the U.$., even as I write...) Another of the ironies is what happened to Haing S. Ngor (Dith Pran in THE KILLING FIELDS) after he came to the U.$.: having survived genocide in Cambodia, he was murdered here, in the street. Maybe THIS is the true Killing Field.