The Killing Fields (1984)
Country:UKDir: Roland Joffe
Genre:War Drama
Rating:7/10
The Killing Fields is one of the most powerful and memorable war movies I have seen till date. I saw the movie in 1998 and since then I have had atleast one viewing of it every year.
Directed by the british born Producer-Director Roland joffe (The Mission, City of Joy) the movie tells the story of a cambodian interpreter (Dith Pran), played superbly by Dr. Haing S. Ngor [Academy Award winnner(1984)- best actor in a supporting role] and friend of an american journalist (Syd Schanberg) played by Sam waterston [Law and Order- SVU, The Great Gatsby], and their experiences in the war torn cambodia during the agrarian-communist Khmer Rouge regime.
The movie is an adaptation of the Pulitzer prize winning report called "The Death and Life of Dith Pran" published by its author Syd Schanberg, a correspondent in the NY Times.
Dr. Ngor, a gynecologist by profession in real life, gives an outstanding performance, and its probably because he himself was a vicitim of the atrocities of the khmer rouge. It is easy to miss the nuances in his acting and just pass it off as an ordinary performance. I like performances where you don't really notice they are acting... they seem more like real characters who are playing themselves...it feels as though Dr. Ngor and Pran are one and the same.....that's real acting for me.
The supporting cast with John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich, Dangerous Liasons), Craig Nelson and Spalding Gray make an excellent cast.
There are some unforgettable scenes in the movie, a few of my favorites I would like to mention here is.... one when Syd and rockoff are at a restaurant seated outdoors and an explosioin takes place. The camera work is intelligent here, the explosion is only slightly in-focus and by doing so the scene looks like a real footage and comes out very effective, and the credits go to Bruce robinson (academy award nom) for his screenplay, and Chris menges for his cinematography .
another scene that I like is when Pran is being photographed by rockoff and we have Sydney who is making a conversation with Pran....Pran's acting is so genuine in this scence that this one scene is enough to award him the oscar.
and also the last scene when Pran is finally united with his friend Sydney, with John lennon's tune imagine (one of my favorites) playing in the background... and schanberg asks for apology....this is one scene which simply hard to describe.
All in all the movie is one of the best war-dramas. It is more Human in its content than many of the war-dramas I have seen. I am all praises for it and would highly recommend it.
Prasad Bhat
Directed by the british born Producer-Director Roland joffe (The Mission, City of Joy) the movie tells the story of a cambodian interpreter (Dith Pran), played superbly by Dr. Haing S. Ngor [Academy Award winnner(1984)- best actor in a supporting role] and friend of an american journalist (Syd Schanberg) played by Sam waterston [Law and Order- SVU, The Great Gatsby], and their experiences in the war torn cambodia during the agrarian-communist Khmer Rouge regime.
The movie is an adaptation of the Pulitzer prize winning report called "The Death and Life of Dith Pran" published by its author Syd Schanberg, a correspondent in the NY Times.
Dr. Ngor, a gynecologist by profession in real life, gives an outstanding performance, and its probably because he himself was a vicitim of the atrocities of the khmer rouge. It is easy to miss the nuances in his acting and just pass it off as an ordinary performance. I like performances where you don't really notice they are acting... they seem more like real characters who are playing themselves...it feels as though Dr. Ngor and Pran are one and the same.....that's real acting for me.
The supporting cast with John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich, Dangerous Liasons), Craig Nelson and Spalding Gray make an excellent cast.
There are some unforgettable scenes in the movie, a few of my favorites I would like to mention here is.... one when Syd and rockoff are at a restaurant seated outdoors and an explosioin takes place. The camera work is intelligent here, the explosion is only slightly in-focus and by doing so the scene looks like a real footage and comes out very effective, and the credits go to Bruce robinson (academy award nom) for his screenplay, and Chris menges for his cinematography .
another scene that I like is when Pran is being photographed by rockoff and we have Sydney who is making a conversation with Pran....Pran's acting is so genuine in this scence that this one scene is enough to award him the oscar.
and also the last scene when Pran is finally united with his friend Sydney, with John lennon's tune imagine (one of my favorites) playing in the background... and schanberg asks for apology....this is one scene which simply hard to describe.
All in all the movie is one of the best war-dramas. It is more Human in its content than many of the war-dramas I have seen. I am all praises for it and would highly recommend it.
Prasad Bhat
posted by Prasad Bhat at Monday, August 01, 2005
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