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The Killing Fields
Roland Joffé
(1984)
136min
15 Certificate
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Review
Our Score
by
Adrian Turner
Few feature films have captured a nation's agony more dramatically than Roland Joffé's
The Killing Fields
. It tells the story of Cambodia's Year Zero, when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge entered the capital, Phnom Penh, emptied it, turned the population into serfs and slaughtered nearly three million of them. To tell the story of this genocide, the picture has one conventional aspect - the perspective of American journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) - and one less so - the experiences of his Cambodian stringer, Dith Pran, played by Haing S Ngor, a Cambodian doctor whose own suffering at the time was, if anything, even worse than that depicted in the film. Produced by David Puttnam and co-starring John Malkovich, the picture has scale and humanity - the evacuation of the capital is stunning; Ngor's suffering has great emotional force while Waterston's complex mixture of shame and ambition is compelling. Bruce Robinson's script - he later made
Withnail & I
- concentrates on the personal rather than the political (the Vietnamese liberation isn't mentioned) and the music is awful, but this is still one of the greatest pictures of the 1980s. Dr Ngor, who won an Oscar, was murdered in Los Angeles in 1996.
Summary
Oscar-winning fact-based drama following an American reporter's harrowing experiences in 1970s Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge's fight for control of the country. He develops a close friendship with his Cambodian guide, whom he is forced to leave behind to possibly become a victim of the murderous new regime. Starring Sam Waterston, Haing S Ngor, John Malkovich and Spalding Gray.
Cast & Crew
Sydney Schanberg
Sam Waterston
Dith Pran
Haing S Ngor
Al Rockoff
John Malkovich
Jon Swain
Julian Sands
Military attaché
Craig T Nelson
US consul
Spalding Gray
Dr MacEntire
Bill Paterson
Dr Sundesval
Athol Fugard
Dougal
Graham Kennedy
Ser Moeun, Pran's wife
Katherine Kragum Chey
Titony, Pran's son
Oliver Pierpaoli
Sarun
Edward Entero Chey
US military adviser
Tom Bird
Phat, Khmer Rouge Leader, second village
Monirak Sisowath
Phat's son
Lambool Dtangpaibool
Ambassador Wade
Ira Wheeler
France
David Henry
Morgan
Patrick Malahide
Beth
Nell Cambell
TV interviewer
Joan Harris
Director
Roland Joffé
see more
Other Information
Language:
English
Colour
Theatrical distributor:
Columbia-Emi-Warner Dists Ltd
Guidance:
Violence and swearing.
Available on:
video, DVD and Blu-ray
Drama
Full Episode Guide
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