The Killing Fields Reviews

Once again, it was another great movie I hadn’t seen for years so I was really eager to check it out again. Even though there has been countless movies about the Vietnam war, the conflict in Cambodia has been criminally forgotten whereas there was there a massive genocide which was still taking place even when this movie was released. Only therefore, it is already a really important feature. Like many other movies dealing with foreign conflicts like ‘Cry Freedom’ or ‘Shooting Dogs’, it uses the gimmick of having a white main character so we can easily focus and identify with what’s going on but, for once, this gimmick didn’t bother me. Furthermore, even though it was Roland Joffé’s directing debut, the directing was really efficient and this depiction of war was really relentless and quite heartbreaking. Eventually, the ultimate masterstroke was to give a good chunk of the story to Dith Pran, amazingly played by a non-professional actor called Haing S. Nor who was himself a survivor from the Khmer Rouge. It made the whole thing much more compelling to watch and it is hard to imagine what it must have been to play this character after what he has been through. To conclude, it is a very good war feature and it is definitely worth a look.