Home alone with Netflix
I am embarrassed to admit that, until tonight, I had never seen the movie The Killing Fields and I hearby apologize to my Cambodian friends for this lapse. (I did read Spaulding Gray’s book about making the movie, “Swimming to Cambodia”, and I saw the great, locally-produced documentary film, “Monkey Dance” by Julie Mallozi which delves into the lives of Cambodian-American teens and their relationships with their parents, the generation that survived the genocide, escaping as one Mother poignantly say, “to a place where we don’t understand anything.” In any case, if you haven’t seen The Killing Fields, do so, and have your older teens watch it as well. This intense film about the American bombing and subsequent Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in the late seventies will break your heart and sear your conscience. As the privileged ones are evacuated and the Cambodians left to their fate, little children waving cheerfully to the departing limos and helicopters, I was reminded of similar footage from Hotel Rwanda (is there a more chilling sight than young, lawless men with guns?). When will we change; why do these depredations continue? Throughout it all is the dreamy, pastoral beauty of the countryside, like a watercolor painting, even amid the wreckage.