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The Killing Fields (1984)

Director: Roland Joffé

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3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Though it gradually turns into a somewhat sentimental buddy movie, with NY journo Sydney Schanberg (Waterston) longing for news of Dith Pran (Ngor), the Cambodian aide he left behind to suffer the horrors of the Khmer Rouge after the fall of Pnomh Penh in 1975, this is still very much a superior look at one country's troubles in the wake of American involvement in South East Asia. The first hour, sprawling, chaotic and violently messy, is very good indeed, conveying both the complexity and the essential absurdity of war, while the photography by Chris Menges is stunningly convincing in detailing the scale of the carnage. The use of Lennon's 'Imagine' at the end is a severe error of judgment, but the film's overall thrust - angry, intelligent, compassionate - makes this producer Puttnam's finest movie to date.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Tony said...

Posted on Jun 26 2009 22:11 I feel sorry for Steve who doesn't have a clue what happen over there!!! Read The Pol Pot regime and maybe you will get it right. You know who drove the peasants in to the arms of the communist resistance, no?, I'll tell you: war criminals Nixon and Kissinger by dropping, in 18 months time, more bombs on Cambodia than they dropped over Vietnam in 12 years of war. And there was no bridge left in Vietnam when the yanks where forced to fuck off!!! Nixon and Kissinger should had been convicted as war criminals, but yeh they are Americans and in the name of peace...let go before I become angry...as swell as Pol Pot, Nuong Chea, Khieu Sampran, Duch , Mok and other former KR leaders. I still see every day how much this country suffers because of your bombs, Steve, because I live over here...

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BYRON AT THE BIJOU said...

Posted on Mar 25 2008 07:09 Steve you are out to lunch ! I call this film a must see , if it does not move you , possibly to tears , then you have embalming fluid in your veins . This is a story that illustrates the best and the worst in our society . The fact that it happened is shocking enough , and what the Cambodian people suffered still makes me wince . It as a film captures the tension and the awful sense of foreboding ,that we know innocent apolitical people are going to suffer greatly . The acting is compelling , and Ngor won a well deserved Oscar , only to be killed , by a street gang in Los Angeles . I only wish there were more stories like this !

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Steve said...

Posted on Sep 20 2007 16:54 I only got around to watching the Killing Fields in 2007.
I was fully aware of the brutal Khmer Rouge and what had happened to Cambodia.
This movie should have left the viewer with an absolute disgust with all things communist.
But instead the movie blames America for the slaughter! We bomb Cambodia because they have Vietnamese bases there and some how this allows the Khmer Rouge to take over and now America is as guilty as if we were over there pulling the triggers on the million plus victims.
Never in the movie are communists blamed for trying to create a classless possessionless utopian society devoid of tradition and religion.
Finally the stupidest soundtrack selection in the world ends the movie. John Lennon's "Imagine" plays. A song about a classless possessionless utopian society devoid of tradition and religion. It could have been the national anthem for the Khmer Rouge. It espoused most of what they believed, sans the murdering.
I hope this tale is retold by some one that wants to truly educate the world about the dangers of fanatical ideologies, not by the "blame America first" crowd.

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