The Killing Fields

Roland Joffé (1984)

136min

15 Certificate

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

Other Information

Language: EnglishColourTheatrical distributor: Columbia-Emi-Warner Dists LtdGuidance: Violence and swearing. Available on: video, DVD and Blu-ray

Drama

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Roland Joffé (1984)

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