The Killing Fields
I just completed watching "The Killing Fields" for the second time. The first time I watched the movie to watch the movie. The second time I watched and simultaneously listened to the director's commentary. I usually enjoy listening to the commentary tracks because there are so many insights to be gained about the technical creation of a movie as well as the aesthetics that the director is trying to use to create and convey certain emotions.
"The Killing Fields" raises all sorts of issues and emotions regarding southeast Asia. One aspect of the movie that is disappointing is that it never quite manages to shake the western perspective of the butchery visited on Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. That is the perspective that we [specifically the US, but western nations as well] were somehow in complete control.
I was repeatedly struck by an invasive anti-military subtext to the film. Such a subtext is hardly surprising given the subject matter and the time when the movie was made. However, given the director's self professed desire to express the unique sort of empathy than human beings share with one another, I found it mildly disconcerting that one of the prime military characters was not even named in the credits at the end of the film. Craig T. Nelson of "Coach" fame plays the part of Major Reeves in the movie. Major Reeves is apparently some sort of utility stand-in for any sort of American military authority as he appears to control air traffic in Cambodia, he serves as a military liaison escort for the press, he controls gate access to the American embassy, and eventually is the coordinator for the American withdrawal from the embassy in Cambodia. It is almost impossible for a single officer to hold that many positions and display any sort of competence in the performance of his/her duties.
Craig Nelson's credit in the movie is as "military attaché". [IMDB actually lists the role as "Major Reeves, military attaché" which differs from the DVD.] Given the director's statements about humans having empathy and wanting to express care and concern about fellow humans, I found this modest bit of depersonalization or dehumanization towards this character to be out of place.
I was mildly disappointed and unsurprised to find John Lennon's "Imagine", his most repugnant work, used at the end of the movie. What was quite surprising was that the movie's director, Roland Joffé, said quite explicitly that "Imagine" could quite easily have served as a sort of theme song for the Khmer Rouge. That song embraces the sort of destruction of the individual that lies at the core of most collectivist movements. Precisely the reason why I hold it in such low esteem.
The most ham fisted moment of the movie comes when the character Sydney Schanberg played by Sam Waterston declares that perhaps the butchery of the Killing Fields might not have occurred had the US not spent billions of dollars dropping bombs on the country. The none to veiled suggestion is that American bombs alone transformed an otherwise peaceful and civilized country into becoming the cradle of some of the grossest acts of inhumanity in the 20th century.
That statement grossly oversimplifies the issues facing Kampuchea [Cambodia] as well as the rest of southeast Asia at the time. As the director's commentary makes clear, there were also long term issues of nations desiring to re-acquire their status as empires as well as a history of nations invading one another among many forces at work in the region.
Regular readers of this space will be unsurprised that I would also suggest that communist interference in the region also had not only the effect of destabilizing the region, but it added to that destabilization by promoting precisely the sort of "cleansing" that occurred in Cambodia. It may be more accurate to suggest that such gross acts of butchery were made possible more by our absence from the region than by anything we may have done while we were fighting there.
One redeeming quality of the movie is the overall portrayal of the American embassy staff as being reluctant to leave Cambodia to be raped by the communists. Roland Joffé's commentary supports that perspective as he reveals that in interviews the Ambassador and the embassy staff had all expressed disappointment and a sense of very personal grief regarding their retreat and the subsequent fall of Cambodia to a living, decades long nightmare.
We should all hope that this movie presents a rare moment in human history. And we should all guard against the rise of such madness with great vigilance. If you haven't seen this movie, then it is certainly worth your time. Keep in mind that a certain domestic political perspective is on display. And take the time to listen to Roland Joffé's outstanding commentary.
An afterwords of sorts:
Recognizing that the above is about experiences that are beyond my own and that a variety of readers visit this site, I want to point out that people of good will can and do disagree on a whole range of subjects related to the campaign for southeast Asia.
Should the US have sent troops to Vietnam in the first place? That is a question for brighter minds than mine. I do respectfully suggest that quitting a war that has not been won generally has less than desirable results. Whether one wants to point out the seriously flawed ending to World War I, our withdrawal from southeast Asia, or our serial retreats in the face of Middle Eastern opposition, the result has generally been [that] greater acts of violence follow than was the case in the original conflict.
Once our forces have set foot on the battlefield, the only course that preserves the most lives is a complete and decisive victory.
The source of my visceral response to this movie really is its repetition of the canard that suggests that responsibility for all of the evil that occurred in southeast Asia should rest at the feet of the United States. That is an ahistorical position that totally ignores the fact that two superpowers were playing a game of geo-political chess that spanned the globe. There would not have been any reason to for the US to become militarily engaged in southeast Asia, Turkey, Greece, Central America, Iran, South America, and any number other locations around the globe were it not for the demonstrable destruction that followed in the wake of Soviet attempts to expand the reach of communism.
Mere humans die when titans battle. Something to which Roland Joffé alluded toward the end of his commentary when he described a 2000 year old Cambodian sculpture depicting two giants locked in a fight while humans are being crushed beneath their feet.
by Dann
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