The Killing Fields Sparknotes

There is a reason horror films are rated R. While people may want to see the terror, killing, crime, violence and blood, there is a sense of revulsion underlying it. It is even more so when movies are based on true stories. While the movie itself is entertaining, somewhere deep inside there is a sense of wrongness. The movie “The Killing Fields” is one of these. Directed by Roland Joffe, a London born producer, the movie is compelling, drawing the viewers into the story and into the lives of the characters, but the story is almost revolting: the Khmer Rouge killed over one million Cambodian people and forced many more than that into slave labor, complete with very little to eat and forced re-education. The story of the film follows the story
During the course of the film, Cambodia is taken over by the Khmer Rouge and the story follows Schanberg and Pranh’s struggle. As the Khmer Rouge gains control in cambodia, Schanberg and Pranh face the struggle of trying to remain safe against the attacks. They struggle to make it out of Cambodia, trying to forge a German passport for Pranh since Cambodians are not allowed out of Cambodia. While Schanberg makes it back to America safely, Pranh must face the Khmer Rouge, who tries to reconstruct cambodia through re-education and year one. In one particularly poignant scene, the Khmer Rouge celebrates how one young child erases the bond between a drawn child and family: a sign of the new age in which family is not allowed. Pranh must fight for his life while pretending to be ignorant, despite the fact that he is highly educated and speaks both english and french. The plot follows Pranh’s journey as he travels through the infamous Killing Fields- acres and acres of dead bodies. Unlike traditional hollywood films, the storyline does not focus the american--schanberg-- as the hero, but rather focuses on Pranh. This emphasizes the blatant mistreatment of Pranh, a cambodian, and how he is stripped of his most basic rights. Pranh’s life is a testimony to the incredible resilience of the Cambodian
The Khmer Rouge held children in high esteem, seeing them as a symbol of the new age of Cambodia. In several scenes children soldiers, some looking no older than six or seven, hold heavy machine guns nearly as large as themselves. According to “Many Petals of the Lotus” by Janet McLellen, “Children as young as ten were purposefully exposed to widespread violence. They were indoctrinated into Khmer Rouge ideology and given incentives, such as food or reduced labor, to mould them into aggressive and violent cadres” (McLellen). As previously mentioned, a small child erases bond between a parent and child on a chalkboard and all the “students” of the re-education cheer at this. Later in the movie, Pranh’s companion accendentally steps on a underground bomb and both he and the child he is holding die in the explosion. Pranh holds a ceremony to honor the fallen boys and mourns his death. In the final scene of the movie, Pranh helps a young boy who has lost most of a leg in the violence. These children are here for a reason. Not only is it historically accurate, but it also causes the audience of the film to pause and forces them to realize that there were actual children-- the same age as their children, perhaps-- who had to face the horrors of the Khmer Rouge takeover. In our society, it’s easy to gloss right over the violence in hopes of not having to deal with the horror that takes