Schanberg relies upon his loyal Cambodian partner, Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) to send out copy over the wires. Schanberg's associates include fellow reporter Julian Sands, photographer John Malkovich, diplomat Spalding Gray, and military officer Craig T. Nelson.
Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, falls to the communists in 1975. Most Westerners evacuate with the U.S. military, and the remainder are rounded up and deported. Schanberg attempts to save Pran from probable murder by Khmer Rouge forces. But Pran is forced into the countryside along with other Phnom Penh residents, where many soon die in harsh re-education camps.
Meanwhile, Schanberg is in New York, and despairs over Pran's prospects in Cambodia. Pran escapes from his death camp, and makes his way on foot to the border, a long and dangerous journey.
In the movie, Pran's wife and children are safely evacuated to America. In real life, they remained in Cambodia, where Pran's wife died shortly after giving birth.
The film's true lead, Ngor, was a Cambodian survivor of the genocide. He was murdered during in America during a 1996 robbery, because he refused to hand over a gold chain attached to a locket with a photo of his late wife.
How others will see it. The Killing Fields was an unlikely box office success, fueled by a highly favorable critical reception. BAFTA bestowed a remarkable eight awards on the movie, including Best Film, Best Actor (Ngor), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. It was nominated for five additional awards, including Best Director and Best Actor (Waterston). The Oscars and Golden Globes combined for 13 nominations, with Ngor winning Best Supporting Actor at both festivals.
Today at imdb.com, the movie has a respectable 47K user votes and a high user rating of 7.9 out of 10. The user reviews are full of praise, though there is a understandable divergence in viewers' political and philosophical perspectives and insights.
How I felt about it. Cambodia endured a horrific genocide between 1975 and 1979, with about one-quarter of the country's population dying in the killing fields. Although Pol Pot's name never arises, he was primarily responsible for the genocide. But white guilt, in the form of the New York Times reporter, is not completely unfounded. The U.S. made promises to the pro-Western factions in Vietnam and Cambodia that, ultimately, they were unable to keep.
The Cambodian killing fields were a more extreme version of China's Cultural Revolution. Why the Khmer Rouge was determined to "cleanse" its population of civilization is not essential to understand. What matters is that the bewildered population had to find a path to survival, similar to the lead in The Pianist, a movie about a holocaust from a different place and time.
The Western journalists in Cambodia, a mix from all over the world, love the individuals that comprise humanity, but despise the governments and militaries that attempt to rule. These passions are so strong that they often overcome any sense of self preservation. It turns out that the pro-Western Cambodians are the most vulnerable, but Dith Pran's extreme loyalty to Schanberg causes him to make the fateful decision of not departing on the exiting U.S. military helicopters.
Since we are cynical, we question the depth of friendship between the two men from different worlds, Schanberg and Pran. But they share a common goal of drawing Western attention to Cambodia, despite Schanberg's apparent belief that the nation would have been better off if the West had left it alone.
Overall, the movie is a bleak assessment of what results from an indifference to life by the warmongerers and revolutionaries. The Killing Fields is so compelling because it captures this indifference and the resulting brutality and extermination. If hope persists, it comes from the bonds between friends and family that survive beyond what is practical or convenient.