8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.3 |
A journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody 'Year Zero' cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million 'undesirable' civilians.
Starring: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Craig T. NelsonWar | 100% |
History | 85% |
Drama | 11% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The Killing Fields is an important film not only because of its exceptional quality, but also because it is the only film from a major Hollywood studio to dramatize the momentous impact of the Vietnam War on the neighboring nation of Cambodia. Many Americans brought back stories from Vietnam, which became the basis of films, novels, plays and memoirs. But the U.S. presence in Cambodia was far more limited, and within a few years after the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1975, the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that overthrew Cambodia's previous government had killed as many as three million Cambodians (the death toll can only be estimated), with special attention given to anyone with education, professional skills or artistic talent. By the time the Khmer Rouge was defeated in January 1979, the most likely witnesses to it crimes against humanity were all dead. Not quite all of them, though. Dith Pran had worked as a translator and guide to New York Times correspondent Sydney Shanberg, who had been assigned to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge overran the city. Shanberg had already arranged for Pran and his family to be evacuated to the United States, but Pran insisted on staying behind to help Shanberg continue reporting. When all remaining foreign journalists took refuge in Phnom Penh's French embassy, the French were forced to surrender every Cambodian citizen as the price for the embassy's safety. To his great frustration and no small sense of guilt, Shanberg had to leave Cambodia without his friend and colleague, whom the Khmer Rouge would almost certainly execute as a collaborator. But Pran survived, masquerading as a nobody who'd driven a taxi. In 1979, after years of privation and abuse, he escaped across the border into Thailand, with detailed accounts of the atrocities perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. It was Pran who coined the term "killing fields" to describe the open spaces where the regime piled up the bodies of its randomly executed victims. After contacting Shanberg, Pran emigrated to the U.S., where he became a photojournalist with the Times and a tireless advocate on behalf of Cambodian refugees. (Pran died in 2008 at the age of 65.) Producer David Puttnam (Chariots of Fire) chose first-time feature director Roland Joffé to helm The Killing Fields over several bigger names, because Joffé was the only one who read the massive script by Bruce Robinson and saw that the core of the film was the enduring friendship between Pran and Shanberg. By focusing on that relationship, Joffé turned what might otherwise have been a parade of horrors into an ultimately optimistic tale about the possibility of grace.
British cinematographer Chris Menges won the first of two Oscars (to date) for his work on The Killing Fields. (The second came two years later for the Joffé-directed The Mission.) Menges' photographic style provides an interesting contrast with the similarly honored lensing of Vittorio Storaro for Apocalypse Now, which contains similar scenes of chaotic battle, madness and grievous injury. Storaro intensified reality to the point where it became hallucinatory, whereas Menges kept The Killing Fields entirely realistic, almost (but not quite) documentary-style, as befits a film about journalists. Every so often, he allowed a moment of photographic stylization, e.g., a lengthy and famous conversation ("This is a big story!") in which Shanberg and Dith Pran are silhouetted against a late afternoon sun. Most of the time, however, the lighting, camera placement and moves are designed not to be noticed. A notable example is an insurgent bombing in a crowded Phnom Penh street, which comes as a complete shock even when you know it's coming, because the camera doesn't direct your eye toward it. It occurs as if a documentary camera just happened to be there, with exactly the right light and focus to capture it perfectly. Except for some slight instability in the opening credits, Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is a superior presentation of Menges' work. The detail is superb, whether in tense closeups of various faces (terrified or vicious, as the case may be), or in the brilliantly choreographed long shots of barely controlled chaos involving as many as 3000 extras. Colors are delicately rendered, with a palette dominated by earth tones, primarily browns, yellows and greens. Black levels are accurately rendered, and contrast is properly set. The film's naturally fine grain pattern is visible if you look closely, and it appears undisturbed by filtering, artificial sharpening or other inappropriate digital manipulation. The average bitrate of 25.95 Mbps is at the high end of Warner's usual range, and it is certainly sufficient to avoid any compression-related issues. This is one of Warner's best catalog efforts for a film that truly deserves it.
The film's original Dolby Stereo mix is presented as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's an impressive mix, with clear dialogue, solid effects (by the standard of the era) and a strikingly percussive score by Mike Oldfield (whose "Tubular Bells" is now inextricably linked with The Exorcist). Like some of Maurice Jarre's best scores, Oldfield's orchestration often blends with the sound effects and is a critical element in creating the mood of key scenes. The only caveat to the above evaluation is that Haing S. Ngor was still learning English during the making of the film, and his accent is occasionally thick. (On the commentary track, Joffé reveals that he frequently directed Ngor in French.) Recourse to subtitles may be necessary for some viewers.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2001 DVD. A one-hour BBC documentary on the making of the film and an interview with producer David Puttnam appear on the Australian Blu-ray release of The Killing Fields, but they have not, to my knowledge, ever been included on a region 1 DVD release and are not included on this Blu-ray, presumably because of rights issues.
No discussion of The Killing Fields would be complete without some additional words about co-star Haing S. Ngor. Joffé's initial challenge in casting someone to play Dith Pran was that there were no Cambodian actors to audition; they had all died under the Khmer Rouge. Ngor was a doctor, who, like Pran, survived by concealing his background, but he lost almost all of his family, including his pregnant wife. After escaping to Thailand, he worked as a doctor in the refugee camps before emigrating to Los Angeles. Though initially reluctant to revisit those experiences, Ngor was persuaded by Joffé that he could, through Pran's story, also tell his own and that of his country, which the world barely knew. His moving embodiment of Pran's courage, loyalty and fundamental decency was rewarded with an Oscar and numerous other awards. Ngor continued to act in various TV productions and feature films, including Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth (1993), but his life and career ended with his shocking murder outside his L.A. home on February 25, 1996. The three street gang members convicted of the crime theorized, through their attorney, that the actor had been targeted by sympathizers of the Khmer Rouge, but produced no evidence to support their theory. All reliable evidence indicates that the killing was a botched robbery. At the time, Dith Pran referred to Ngor as his "twin", saying "right now I am alone". Still, as Ngor himself predicted, the film in which he made an indelible mark lives on. Highest recommendation.
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