The 1984
movie The Killing Fields, based on Sydney Schanberg's book
The Death and Life of Dith Pran was widely acclaimed by the critics as
a film presenting the triumph of hope over fear. However, before drawing the
final conclusion, the viewers become familiar with aspects of death in both its
forms: physical and spiritual.
Physical Death - An Expression of the Absurd and a Glimpse of Determinism
Most of the
plot wraps around the horrors committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia,
especially the extermination of a great part of Phnom Penh population. The
sequences presenting random shootings or various forms of torture abound, and
they are very plastic. People of all ages - men, women and young children – are
killed by the representatives of the "new order", without any justifications.
Death is
present here every step of the way, in its cruelest and most violent forms, perfectly
illustrating the precarious condition of the human existence and how absurd,
from the existentialist point of view, destiny can be.
According
to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, "each individual... is
responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and
sincerely"[1],
but the great irony, at least in the movie under discussion, is that the destinies
of prominent scientists, writers, doctors and politicians are decided, not by
themselves, but by a handful of young, illiterate men and women who represent
the new doctrine. The civilians end up shot randomly, but they are also beaten
to death, in order to save bullets.
Besides the
sudden death that, up to a certain point, can be regarded as a relief, as the
end of the sufferings, starvation is another way of getting rid of the
"useless individuals”, as the intellectuals were regarded by the Khmer
Rouge regime. According to the new agrarian policy, the role of the forced
labor camp prisoners was to grow crops, but they were not allowed to enjoy the fruits
of their work.
For the
Western viewers, seeing the methods these unfortunate people used for staying
alive represents a shocking experience. Eating lizards, sucking the blood of
living buffalos, nothing is too much for the once civilized, highly educated
journalist Dith Pran. His stubbornness to survive the living hell of the
concentration camp can be seen as an absurdity, since death surrounds him from
everywhere, in different forms, but also as an heroic attempt to take control
of his own destiny.
Spiritual Death - The Ugly Face of the Cambodian Regime
Giving up
his background, his education and the knowledge he has accumulated is the
protagonist’s only chance to survive the horrors of the "Year Zero"
policy, promoting the mass extermination of intellectual values. The fact that
he had to leave behind everything that defined him equaled a spiritual death
for Dith Pran.
The title of
the book describing his traumatic experience, The Death and Life of Dith
Pran, is very significant at this point, because it summarizes the journalist’s
resolution: he had to die as a spirit, as an identity, in order to survive as a
human being.
There are
two sides to spiritual death as presented in the Killing Fields: the voluntarily
death, the case of Dith Pran being the best example and the imposed death, the
prisoners being heavily indoctrinated to become loyal subjects of the Khmer
Rouge regime. They are taught to live with the party in mind, thinking only
what they are allowed to think and loving only the "Uncle", the
affectionate name given by the Cambodian communists to their leader, Pol Pot.
By forcing
the prisoners to abandon any idea of righteousness and morality, making them
submit only to the commands of the party, the oppressors succeed in their
mission of creating the new types of human machines they need.
For Dith
Pran, stumbling across the bones, skulls and plastic bags scattered around the
"killing field" represents the lowest point of his terrible
experience, the moment when he realizes the omnipresence of death. It is
perhaps the first time he realizes that he is in a lose-lose situation, and
that not even accepting his spiritual death would guarantee his physical
survival.
The
Cambodian journalist is lucky to escape the hell the Khmer Rouge have turned the
country into, but millions other people do not have this chance. The movie,
with all the death and pain it presents, is a tribute to all the victims of the
genocide the communists orchestrated in this country.
Although
the existentialist themes, such as the absurd of the human existence and the
despair, occupy a central place, an essentialist or a theologist could easily
interpret the optimistic end as an introduction to the afterlife. The death and
despair on the “killing field” and in the concentration camp could represent
the limited human existence, while the resurrection, the new beginning, is the
symbol of the afterlife.
