The Khmer Rouge and Film

The Killing Fields DVD cover
(Warner Bros.)

I just finished watching the films The Killing Fields and Swimming to Cambodia. Both were extremely different films, of course the common theme linking them was the topic (Cambodia) and also one of the actors, Spalding Gray. The Killing Fields was directed by Rolland Joffé in 1984 (only five years after the Khmer Rouge), and Swimming to Cambodia was a one man monologue by Spalding Grey produced in 1987. Still teary eyed from watching The Killing Fields first, I immediately watched Swimming to Cambodia which gave a unique perspective inside the filming of The Killing Fields and a concise account of Cambodia's recent history as well as Joffé's reasoning for making film--Cambodia as a demolished and war-torn former "Shangri-La."

Pran (right) and Schanberg in Cambodia August 1973
interviewing a government soldier.

The Killing Fields was about New York Times' journalist Sydney Schanberg who is in Cambodia to cover the American bombings and the  general status of the nation as it spiraled into civil conflict and the Khmer Rouge takeover April 17, 1975. His translator, Dith Pran, is vital in helping him cover stories, and when Schanberg wins the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1976, he says that nothing would have been possible if it weren't for Pran. But that is just the problem: rather than encourage Pran to evacuate the country when he still could with his wife and children, he wants Pran to stay behind and help him. The situation worsens, and shortly after one scare when teenage soldiers capture Schanberg, Pran and other journalists, all foreigners are moved to the French Embassy for refuge. This okay until the Khmer Rouge insists that all foreign journalists leave the country and Cambodians stay--including the very well educated Pran. Pran labors away working for the Rouge, and is consistently suspected of being educated and must play dumb when asked "voulez vous un cigarette?" Finally, he is able to make it to a Red Cross refugee camp in Thailand, where Schanberg finds him. The film skips the fact that Pran was actually made a village chief in Siem Reap by the Vietnamese in 1978, but escapes fearing that the Vietnamese would discover that he was a journalist before the Khmer Rouge. When Schanberg wins the Pulitzer Prize, although he accepts it on his and Pran's behalf, fellow journalist Al Rockoff formally accuses him of forcing Pran to stay behind with him when before he had a chance to escape. Although Schanberg admits this and I too agree with Rockoff, his acceptance speech in the film was excellent, accusing the U.S. government of treating Cambodian people as "abstract instruments" in war.

One of Pran's many excellent photos. Taken in 1974 "of shells being fired at a village Northwest of Phnom Penh" 

I found out that two of the journalists that Schanberg is with throughout the film, Al Rockoff and Jon Swain, have actually publicly disassociated themselves from the film for false portrayals. While at the French Embassy, Rockoff tries to forge a passport for Pran using one of Swain's old passports. He is unable to procure the correct chemicals for developing film in the makeshift darkroom, and ends up messing up the photo. In reality, Rockoff says, Pran already had a photo that they intended to use, but Pran gave himself up to the Rouge.

An excellent part about the film was that it did not use subtitles--what you understood in the film is what you would have understood if you were there in the moment. The film also did not try and hide any brutality or violence from the viewer, and again: this is what it would have been like. A videographer could avert his/her lens and your eyes would never see; your eyes can only shut after seeing. The crying of children that echoed throughout some scenes of the film was brilliant--giving you a sense of the pain and horror that children (often made Khmer Rouge leaders and forced to kill others) endured. In other scenes opera plays in the background. Opera, I believe, has the ability to captivate you and create more emotion than (the overwhelming vast majority of) other music. Although often not sung in English, it is the tone and the melody, combined with the classical music, that gives opera its power. The famous song "Nessun Dorma" (or if all of this writing about genocide makes you want to watch something more light-hearted, watch this version of the song instead) plays when Schanberg watches the news about the war and contemplates his part in Pran's fate after the awards ceremony, and has more power than words and acting to express Schanberg's feelings.

Swimming to Cambodia (Cinecom Pictures)

Swimming to Cambodia was an altogether different type of film. Although in many parts funny (albeit a bit vulgar), he gives a serious concise history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, his experience filming, and his opinions of the U.S. in general. He also describes the horrifying world of sex work and prostitution during the Vietnam War and currently in Bangkok. When he is finished filming in Thailand, he is supposed to return to "Krumville" in New York for a vacation with his girlfriend, but Gray still has hope of having a "perfect moment." To me, Krumville represents the banal that Gray had to return to, and that he was much more invested in what had happened in Cambodia than the present New York. Gray briefly discusses the influence that China had in Cambodia, and that they supported the Khmer Rouge--regardless of the fact that the Rouge was killing much of the small Khmer-Chinese community (after all, Mao Zedong was killing Chinese people as well).  He mentions that perhaps Pol Pot was in some sort of competition with Mao to have a more pure and agrarian revolution than China. I had never heard this theory before and find it quite convincing. Among other things, Gray also discusses meeting an awful marine in the lounge car of a train and his distaste for U.S. power in the Southeast Asia region, including the CIA backed Lon Nol prime minister (Gray says that all we knew about Lon Nol was that "Lon Nol" backwards spells "Lon Nol") and Nixon's decision to override the Senate and Congress about where U.S. troops can be stationed in relation to Cambodia's borders with Vietnam. Overall: I was shocked to be captivated for an hour and a half by watching one man speak.

Works Cited:
The Killing Fields. Joffé, Roland Dir. Enigma Limited, 1984. Film.

Swimming to Cambodia. Gray, Spalding Dir. The Swimming Company, 1987. Film.