Mozzeenet

I think the title of the film, The Killing Fields (1984), put me off seeing it even though people have said to me since living in Cambodia that it’s worth seeing. I’ve been thinking about it but kind of dreading it too because its title gives the impression of a violent bloodbath and as that was the actual turn of events, I didn’t think that was unreasonable but yet, didn’t really want to put myself through it.

I finally borrowed it last week and sat down last Friday night to watch it on our small portable TV which was kind of appropriate with the ’80s sound and picture quality. I don’t know if it is because I have lived there and could recognise some of the street scenes and that it conjured up a similar picture to the one formed in my mind through reading historical accounts of the Khmer Rouge regime but I found it very moving. From my knowledge, it was a fairly realistic portrayal apart from the scenes just after the KR soldiers took over Phnom Penh when it was shown to be raining heavily which seems unlikely because the coup occurred at Khmer New Year in April, the hottest month of the year (that’s the time of the year we arrived in the country and we didn’t see rain for a few months) and the comical accents put on by the actors playing Australian expats.
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