The Killing Fields review

 Number 382 on the top 1000 films of all time is a biographical drama 'The Killing Fields.'

Set during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, the Killing Fields details the relationship of two journalists during the Cambodian genocide. One journalist is the American 'Sydney Schanberg' (Sam Waterston) and the other is Sydney's Cambodian interpreter Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor.) John Malkovich co-stars as Sydney's photographer Al Rockoff.

Whenever I watch films about subjects like war or genocide. I am always of the mantra or go hard or go home. The Holocaust film 'The Pianist' goes hard and it's all the better for it. However, I cam coming to believe that this doesn't always need to be the way. the Killing Fields is subtle and understated. This isn't to say it shies away from the horrors of the genocide, but it far more selective in what it chooses to show.

We see the build-up of prisoners being executed, but we never see these executions first hand. So when we do see scenes like Pran escaping his internment camp to find himself tumbling into a pit of skeletons, the impact is all the stronger. The fact these skeletons are the remains of the executed prisoners makes the image even scarier.

A recurring issue I find with films about world historical events told from a Western lens is that there is the tendency to wrongly focus on the Western character. I wouldn't go far to say there was a white saviour narrative. Sydney is no hero and definitely no saviour. When he and the other Western journalists are being evacuated home, they do all they can to take Pran with them - even going so far to making him a fake passport. When this fails, they have no choice, but to leave them behind.

Sydney later acknowledges had a chance to leave long ago, but Sydney convinced him to stay. Back in the US, Sydney uses every contact he has to find Pran, but it is Pran who escapes and find a Red Cross refugee camp near the border with Thailand. Obviously growing up in the Western world, I view things through a Western lens. And so narratives like Sydney's are very familiar to me. Overly-familiar I would say. It wasn't until halfway when the film switched to Pran in the internment camp did I start taking serious interest. Pran was an infinitely more interesting character and I was rooting for him to escape. He was also a very clever man, playing dumb when interred, as he knows he'll be killed otherwise. If he is even suspected of being a working professional then the regime would kill him.

And all due credit to Haing Ngor. Having survived three stints in Cambodian prison camps, he went onto win an acting Oscar for this role, despite having no previous acting experience. He is the only Asian actor to win an Oscar and he very much deserved it. It is so sad his life was cut short when he was killed in a 1996 robbery.

Please give this film a watch. Albeit, it is very traumatic, but it makes for absolutely essential viewing.

Hotel Rwanda review

 Number 169 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2004 drama Hotel Rwanda.

Hotel Rwanda tells the real-life story of Paul Rusesabagina (portrayed by Don Cheadle) and his wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo). Paul is the manager of the Hotel Des Milles Collines during the Rwandan genocide. He becomes a reluctant hero as he and his family begin sheltering Tutsi refugees against the Hutu militias who want to kill them all.

Claudia Puig of USA Today described this film as an African Schindler's List - a comparison that was running through my mind as well. Like Oskar Schindler, Paul Rusesabagina, despite being Hutu and in a position of respect and influence, does everything in his power to protect the oppressed Tutsis. However, unlike Schindler's List and The Pianist which detailed an unflinching portrayal of the Holocaust, Hotel Rwanda is far more understated. While sometimes it is better to depict a genocide in all its atrocious detail, at times it is also better to leave more to the imagination.

Throughout Hotel Rwanda, we hear a lot about the machetes that the Interahamwe militia use to kill the Tutsi, we don't witness any of these executions ourselves. Instead we hear the victim's screams or in a particular chilling scene, upon negotiating with Interahamwe leader Georges Rutaganda for supplies and refusing his offer to give up the Tutsi he is harbouring, on Paul's journey home, he finds that the road he and his traitorous receptionist (more on this later) Gregoire are driving on is uneven and bumpy. However, due to a fog, they are unable to see anything. Upon leaving the van, Paul is horrified to see that they have been driving on a road of bodies. I found this to be a far more subtle and sensitive way to depict the horrors of the genocide.

But, also importantly, the film focused on the plight of those left behind. While the UN is present with its peacekeeping force, their orders are to only evacuate foreign nationals i.e anybody who isn't Rwandan. The local church with its white missionaries arrive to be evacuated but their Rwandan congregation is refused entry. In a film, littered with heart-breaking scenes, this was the scene that told me that Hotel Rwanda is too upsetting for me to watch ever again.

Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte also star in supporting roles, Joaquin Phoenix as photojournalist Jack Daglish and Nolte as UN Colonel Oliver respectively. And while both men were only in supporting roles, they were some of the best characterisations within the film. Daglish is disgusted by a massacre that he films and the fact that he cannot do anything to help these people. Paul reassures him that when Western audiences see his footage, they will be moved to take action. Daglish disagrees with him, proclaiming that "they'll say that's disgusting and carry on eating their dinners." 

Truer words have never been spoken. Speaking as one of these privileged Westerners in my proverbial , ivory tower, it's difficult for me to truly connect with the struggles of these people as I am so far removed from them. And I think the same goes for lots of Western audiences. How many times have you seen a charity advert for starving African children and gone "oh that's awful. I can't imagine what that's like" before continuing on with your day? My answer to that. More times than I can count.

Nolte also bought a great humanity to the character of Colonel Oliver. In what could have easily been a generic army grunt, I truly felt the inner conflict that Oliver was feeling. Having connected with Paul and seen the horrors first-hand, he desperately wants to help them but his hands are tied by bureaucracy. Overworked and understaffed, I truly felt his frustration at his superiors who could not care less about the plight of the Rwandans for the sole reason that they're black. And I don't mean to be provocative, but truthful. Although interestingly Senator Romeo Dallaire, whom Oliver was based on, has always been a vocal critic of the film's historical accuracy.

And of course we have to applaud Don Cheadle who received an Oscar nod for his portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina and deservingly so.  He was playing a man who had to survive in an impossible situation, and not just survive, but keep his Tutsi family alive, keep running his hotel, fend off the Interahamwe and look after the 1000 Tutsi refugees that he is harbouring. And that is exactly what he did. He managed to get every single one of those refugees to safety. I just wish that Sophie Okonedo had more to do. She is a great actress and I think she was short-changed in this film. Okonedo was great in the parts that she was in and was deserving of her Oscar nod, but her part could have been more interesting.

All in all though this was a brilliant film that broke my heart and made me cry many tears. Just don't ask me to watch it again. My heart couldn't take that.