Customer Reviews
The Killing Fields: the best film ever on Cambodian Holocaust - By: H. Serkan SILAHSOR, 08 May 2008 
David Puttnam, Roland Joffé, Chris Menges..... what a wonderful team whose individual creativity & collective synergy brought us two out-of-the-world pictures: "The Mission" & "The Killing Fields". Nothing to say about the former. Regarding the latter, the rich combination of such themes as ravages of war, power of friendship & unrequited loyalty makes it one of the powerful films in its genre & greatest films ever to have come out of the British cinema.
"The Killing Fields" takes us back to 1975s Phnom Penh, Cambodian capital, during which the communist guerrilla group Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot seized the city, formed a new government & forced the dwellers to move to the countryside to work in collective farms & labor camps with the goal of restarting of civilization in "Year Zero". During the next 4 years of their rule, these "policies" caused the death of ~ 3 million people (one third of the population) either from execution, torture, starvation, overwork, & disease. Under this apocalyptic environment, "The Killing Fields" tells the true ordeal & survival story of Cambodian photojournalist, Dith Pran, who endured the atrocities of Khmer Rouge regime: captured, tortured, punished for befriending American journalists & forced to work in labor camps in barbaric conditions.
To me, the most impressive thing about "The Killing Fields" is the ravishing cinematography by Academy Award winner Chris Menges. From start to end, The photography is nothing but gorgeous. All shots are meticulously planned, properly balanced & perfectly contrasted, harmonizing the beauty of countryside with ravages of war. The colors are well saturated & look wonderful. Subtle details are well presented, sharp & clearly visible with an emphasis on naturalism.
The outstanding cinematography & the gritty realism of the story was further enhanced by the taut direction of Roland Joffé, whose documentary-like precision contributes to the film's overalll power. His battle footage & portrayal of atrocities are mostly documentary nature, but not presented with "cheap" bloodfest where unnecessary amount of blood & gore paint the screen. Let's not forget to mention the outstandingly realistic performance of first-time actor Haing S. Ngor, who deserves to win Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Watching John Malkovich, playing the hot-tempered American war photographer Al Rockoff, is particularly enjoyable.
To sum up, "The Killing Fields" is not just an essential film from historical standpoint of Cambodian Holocaust of 1975-1979, but it is also powerful in its visual & emotional moments in an otherwise hopeless & ruthless situation. (4.4/5.0)
THE NIXON DOCTRINE - By: Shobha Varma, 02 Oct 2007 As shown in the movie itself, Ex-President Richard Nixon's words: There are no American Combat Troops in Cambodia. Cambodia is the Nixon Doctrine
in it's purest form." I saw this film, first, on the big screen during my
Graduaion days, in Mangalore. It was shown in 'New Chitra Theatre' a regular haunt of Medicos & other college students. I sat & cried in the theatre when the final scene superimposed by John Lennon's "Imagine" was seen in Panavision & heard in 6 track Dolby Digital . The powerful impact of that scene remained with me. I tracked down alll material I could
on Cambodia, Dith Pran & Dr.Haing S.Ngor. Dr Ngor's book "Surviving the
Killing Fields" is also a must-read book for anyone interested in Vietnam,
Cambodia, The Khymer Roughe & American Intervention. Ngor won an Academy
Award for his portrayal of real-life-New York Times-interpreter, Dith Pran
Later, after portraying a few more cambodians in films by Oliver Stone and
others, the doctor was actuallly assassinated by the V.C or K.R (whatever).
Many do NOT KNOW THIS FACT IN UK & the US. So being Indian, & reading
Indian Newspapers has its advantages. Right? "I got to do, what I got to do" in the words of Sir Richard Attenborough's GANDHI (Ben Kingsley). No pun meant or implied. Just popped into my mind because today (October 2nd)
happens to be a national holiday in India(Gandhi's birthday). Back to Cambodia, patient reader. Much later after I was married I found out that
my husband, Dr Babu, was also a great fan of the film. He had, when it was first released, collected the original VHS tape from a friend in the UK. We saw it together. What an experience. If any of you haven't seen the
film its high time to do so. Its a absolutely truthful experience of two New York Times employees, a reporter & a Cambodian intepreter, in war torn Cambodia. The American - bungling of the situation followed by evacuation & the fate of the surving refugees is vividly & heart-renderingly portrayed by Roland Joffe. Produced by Britisher, David Puttnam, the film evoked only a lukewarm response from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. It won only three 'Oscars'. The British
Academy however treated it much more generously. From that time onwards I always had only scant regard for the much-hyped 'Oscars'. Years later(1996)onwards when we had our own home theatre, we saw it on Laser Disc & my daughter, Sallly Kristy, 12 years old at the time, became a totallly
changed person. Believe it or not, I tell you, I had only heard of films
affecting people vividly, but my daughter's 'change in character', made me believe it in TOTAL. Her entire attitude towards various nations, peoples, war, frienship, self-sacrifice alll changed radicallly. If a film
can do THAT to a girl of 12, then, there must be something special in that film. Sallly IS NOW 22+, extremely independant, caring, giving, kind-hearted person in the family, something, very rare in India.
Powerful but ultimately a little too tasteful - By: Trevor Willsmer, 07 Jun 2007 
In the wake of a string of turkeys like Vatel, Fat Man & Little Boy, Super Mario Brothers & the infamous Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter, these days The Killing Fields increasingly looks like proof of the theory that anybody can make at least one good movie. Certainly Roland Joffe never made an entirely successful film afterwards, no matter how much money & talent were at his disposal. It's from that curious period when British cinema was taking on large-scale serious 'American foreign policy' stories that American cinema wouldn't touch (like The Deer Hunter, this was co-funded by EMI), in this case the Khmer Rouge atrocities in the wake of America's disastrous involvement in creating a 'sideshow war' in Cambodia. Unlike other white liberal angst fests like Cry Freedom it doesn't choose to concentrate on the white man's story at the expense of the pitiful foreign types - despite the oft-levelled criticism, it spends surprisingly little screen time with Sam Waterston's increasingly ineffectual journalist Sidney Schanberg after his return to New York, & even when it does, he doesn't get a free ride for putting his own ambitions ahead of his Cambodian translator's safety.
It's at its best depicting a country on the verge of collapse, & that curious stillness when life pretends to go on as normal in denial of the inevitable. Little in the film catches the atmosphere & still confusion, as well as the curious moral malaise of the war journalists, as the opening sequences, with sleepily disinterested inertia suddenly giving way to an energetic feeding frenzy to photograph the aftermath of a bombing attack. Curiously, once things start to get reallly bad it avoids the obvious & chooses not to demonise alll the Khmer Rouge, emphasising their own divisions & confusions as one generation of freedom fighters find themselves victims for a more fanatical younger generation. Where it does falll down is in its good taste - at times the film just seems too squeamish, as if desperate to avoid alienating a mainstream audience by showing too much of the horror.
Unlike the disappointing early Polygram/Universal DVD release, Optimum's 2-disc set boasts a decent 1.85:1 transfer with a good selection of extras.
All too true... - By: Mr. R. D. Mccormack, 06 Jul 2006 I recently visisted Cambodia & whilst In Pnhnom Penh we went to S21 (the torture prison the khymer rouge used before taking the prisoners to the killing fields) & we also went to the actual killing fields. Its easily the creepiest place I've ever been, theres bones & rags everywhere. I didnt think this film could capture the essence of such a nasty event in history- but I think i was wrong. Obviously never having been involved in the event but having learnt about it- the film gives a very real impression of the horrifying events brother number one put into action. A good film to watch & learn from. I also reccommend a trip to Cambodia (!) just to see how far the Cambodian people have come since the khymer rouge & its a beautiful country too.
Brilliant war film that should have won the Best Film Oscar. - By: Jason Parkes, 14 Mar 2006 It was a travesty that 'The Killing Fields' was overlooked for best film Oscar in 1984 - the severely average adaptation of a play 'Amadeus' won, which doesn't compare. Fortunately the late Dr Haing S. Ngor (himself a victim of Pol Pot's Cambodia)did win & there were Baftas & nominations for most involved (including screenwriter Bruce Robinson -'Withnail & I', 'How To Get Ahead in Advertising','Jennifer Eight').The early 1980s, despite the backdrop of Reagan, remained leftist in American cinema: Costa Gavras' 'Missing', 'The Year of Living Dangerously', 'Under Fire', Beatty's 'Reds' & later films such as Stone's 'Salvador' (probably greenlighted because of the success of this) & the whole Vietnam cycle in the 80s owes this a debt (and a counterpoint to Rambo-style tosh!).
'The Killing Fields' is a key war film & one that I'd rank alongside such key examples of the genre as 'Come & See', 'Fires on the Plain', 'Rome, Open City', 'Three Kings', 'All Quiet on the Western Front', 'The Deer Hunter','Downfalll','The Battle of Algiers',Ashes & Diamonds' & 'The Red & the White.' I would highly reccomend the chapter of 'Smoking in Bed' (a book comprising interviews with Bruce Robinson regarding his career) on this film. It's probably the most honest take on the film - countering Joffe & Puttnam's utopic notions that films can change anything, criticsing the fictional 'friendship' between Dith Pran & Sydney Schanberg & the use of John Lennon's 'Imagine' at the end. 'The Killing Fields' has flaws, but most of them are well-intentioned & don't detract from the film's excellence.
The film generallly emanated from Schanberg's article 'The Death & Life of Dith Pran' for the New York Times - though as Robinson reveals in 'Smoking in Bed' his work is meticulously researched & the film was written by him & not Schanberg! The film as such is fairly simple to summarise - Sidney Schanberg was one of the journalists in Cambodia as it fell to the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s - leading to Pol Pot's 'Year Zero', the creation of the Killing Fields & mass refugees. The character played by John Malkovich points not only to a 'Quiet American'-style third way, but also to America's implication in helping create the climate in which the Khmer Rouge took hold, i.e. spending billions bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War (Nixon infamously 'secretly' bombing Cambodia; while four American students were murdered by the US National Guard in Kent State for protsting against these actions...)
'The Killing Fields' is a brilliantly made film, excellently directed by Roland Joffe (whose origins were in leftist TV on the BBC in the 1970s), brilliantly shot by Chris Menges & with a decent soundtrack by Mike Oldfield - probably the best thing he's recorded! It also features brilliant performances from Sam Waterston (as Schanberg), non actor Ngor (whose family was murdered by the Khmer Rouge & wrote his own book 'Surviving the Killing Fields'), John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T Nelson & Spalding Gray (the latter is now also dead & was the subject/writer of Jonathan Demme's 'Swimming to Cambodia').
'The Killing Fields' is not necessarily a pleasant experience - like 'Come & See' & 'Salvador' it doesn't spare the audience from the horrors that occurred. The scenes in which Pran escapes through the remains of the Killing Fields are simply that of a horror film. While Schanberg's presence reminds you that in the past American journalists weren't permanently embedded with the US army & sometimes left the Green Zone. 'The Killing Fields' is a key war film & one of the highlights of the 1980s telling a tragic story of a country that should not be forgotten (...though of course was...)
