The Killing Fields
| Year: | 1984 |
| Production Co: | Enigma (First Casualty) Ltd |
| Studio: | Warner Bros |
| Director: | Roland Joffe |
| Cast: | Sam Waterson, Haing Ngor, John Malkovich, Craig T Nelson, Graham Kennedy, Julian Sands |
One of the most powerful current affairs docu-dramas of the 1980s, and the first to bag an Oscar win for a southeast Asian (Haing Ngor).
Waterson is Sydney Schanberg, an American journalist in Cambodia when Pol Pot launches his Year Zero campaign that western consensus says resulted in two million deaths (the official history books probably omit the number killed prior to the demonisation of the Kmher forces as the US aided and abetted them before the events largely remembered).
His local friend Dith (Ngor) stays to help cover the story and get the truth out even when Schanberg flees the country along with the rest of his clique, including journalists played by John Malkovich and Graham Kennedy (you'll never see two names in a film that seem from opposite ends of the entertainment universe).
Moving and sad, but - in probably a good move - it's not as violent or bloody as you'll expect being about a genocide.
Waterson is Sydney Schanberg, an American journalist in Cambodia when Pol Pot launches his Year Zero campaign that western consensus says resulted in two million deaths (the official history books probably omit the number killed prior to the demonisation of the Kmher forces as the US aided and abetted them before the events largely remembered).
His local friend Dith (Ngor) stays to help cover the story and get the truth out even when Schanberg flees the country along with the rest of his clique, including journalists played by John Malkovich and Graham Kennedy (you'll never see two names in a film that seem from opposite ends of the entertainment universe).
Moving and sad, but - in probably a good move - it's not as violent or bloody as you'll expect being about a genocide.