SUMMARY: The Killing Fields
1984
Prod. David Puttnam, Dir. Roland
Joffe Sydney Schanberg: Sam Waterston Dith Pran: Dr. Haing S. Ngor
SEQUENCE
ONE * * * * * * * * * * 1. Sound of a jet plane, as we see a young
Cambodian boy sitting on a water buffalo in a country setting. The boy wears an army helmet. Voiceover of Sydney Schanberg: "Cambodia--to
many Westerners it seemed a paradise, a secret world. But the war in Vietnam burst its borders, and
the fighting spread to neutral Cambodia." Images of rice paddies, then war scenes, and a medium shot of Sydney,
as his voiceover continues: "In 1973 I went to cover this sideshow struggle
as foreign correspondent of the New York Times." Then an image of Dith Pran. "It was there in the war-torn countryside
amidst the fighting between government troops and the Khmer Rouge that I met
my guide and interpreter, Dith Pran, a man who was to change my life in a
country I grew to love and pity." 2. Title up. August 7, 1973. Dith Pran
arrives at the airport in Phnom Penh. Before
going inside, he bows to Buddhist monks, wearing their traditional robes.
Inside, the place is deserted. Shots
of him waiting inside the airport. A
mural of the ancient city of Angkor Wat in the background.
He leaves suddenly when he sees an emergency vehicle drive past the
hotel. 3. Sydney Schanberg, a journalist for the New
York Times, arrives at the airport; Dith Pran is nowhere to be found. Sydney arrives at his hotel. He meets Al, a photographer. Sydney is frustrated that Dith Pran was not
at the airport to meet him. 4. Sydney and Al have a drink at an outdoor
cafe. Suddenly a bomb goes off. Al is busy taking photographs. Pran runs up. Sydney is angry with him. But
Pran has a tip about a news story. 5. Sydney and Pran arrive at the airport to get
a flight to the village of Neak Luong, which has been bombed accidentally
by American bombers. But an American
officer there prevents Sydney from departing.
The officer takes Sydney to his office. Sydney realizes that his delay in Bangkok probably was caused by
the American military authorities, who did not want the New York Times to
get the story of the bombing accident. Sydney
tries to get him to respond to the story about the accidental bombing.
But the officer's response: "No comment."
Sydney asks how many casualties. No
answer. Sydney storms out.
SEQUENCE TWO * * * * * * * *
* * 6. Pran and Sydney on the river's edge. Pran tries to wrangle his way on a boat but
has no success. But Sydney is angry
with him. "I don't want to hear
no!" 7.
Back at the hotel Sydney learns from his contact in the American
embassy that a B 52 dropped its entire load on Neak Luong by accident.
The pilot was given the wrong coordinates and thought he was dropping
the bombs on Viet Cong strongholds. Instead,
he locked onto the homing beacon that had been placed in the middle of the
town. There were hundreds of casualties. 8. Sydney sits around the pool at the hotel with
other foreign journalists. Suddenly Pran signals him, and they set
off for a clandestine journey at night down the river to Neak Luong. 9. In Neak Luong, Sydney and Pran view the
aftermath of the bombing. The city
has been destroyed. Tents are set
up, and casualties are being treated inside the tents.
A man asks Sydney and Dith Pran for help. He shows them his child, severely wounded. A young woman asks, "Did they arrest the
pilot?" A little girl tries to
sell a Mercedes hood ornament to Dith Pran.
Suddenly a jeep with soldiers pulls up.
They have Khmer Rouge prisoners. One
of the soldiers, a young woman, is listening to "Man on the Run,"
sung by the Beatles, on her portable radio. 10. Sydney and Pran are taken prisoners by soldiers. They are held for more than a day. At one point
Sydney decides it's time to leave. "I've
had enough of this bullshit. I've
got a story to get to New York." But when he leaves the building, a soldier stops him and points
his rifle at Sydney. Pran warns him,
"Don't leave." After a tense
standoff, Sydney says, "I won't leave." More waiting. Then Sydney and Pran are freed when American
helicopters arrive early one day. The
American major who prevented Sydney from flying to Neak Luong is in command. He has brought journalists in so they can be
given a "sanitized" version of the accident. Sydney exchanges angry words with the official
from the embassy, the man who gave him the secret about the bombing accident.
Before Sydney and Dith Pran leave, they spot the young woman who had
the transistor radio: she lies dead on a litter.
SEQUENCE
THREE * * * * * * * * * * 11. March 10, 1975. Sydney and Pran at the Hotel Phnom Penh. They celebrate their front page story on the
bombing of Neak Luong. Pran is worried
that all journalists will be forced to leave.
Sydney says, "I'd feel stupid covering this war from a desk in
Bangkok." Sydney doesn't take
the danger too seriously. 12. Scenes of refugees leaving the city. The Khmer Rouge are advancing upon the city.
Pran and Sydney are in a jeep driving in the countryside.
A young soldier asks Sydney what car he drives in America. Sydney says he doesn't have a car. He lives in New York City. He
says they use a Mercedes while in Cambodia. "Mercedes, number one," says the soldier. Pran gives the young boy a Mercedes hood ornament.
The young soldier thanks him profusely, and bows and folds his hands
in the sompeah, a sign of devotion and prayer. Sydney and Pran enter the city. They enter a warehouse stocked with cases of
Coca Cola, where the American military authorities are trying to console the
Cambodians, who are losing the battle against the advancing Khmer Rouge. Suddenly a rocket explodes. Sydney and Pran are caught in the middle of
a battle between the defenders and the Khmer Rouge, who are advancing across
a wide line just outside the edge of the city.
At the end of the scene a young child holds her ears and screams, and
her screams echo--transition to-- 13. A quiet scene in the American embassy. People are worn out, waiting, fearful. While battle sounds can be heard in the
distance, Sydney works on an article. Meanwhile,
documents are being shredded in the American embassy. Sydney is with a man from the embassy, the
one who told him about the bombing accident.
The official is frustrated. "This
country has a lot of faults and a lot of strengths, and we've done nothing
but play to the faults. After what
the Khmer Rouge have been through, I don't think they're going to be affectionate
to Westerners." Later, he tells
Sydney, "It could be a bloodbath here." 14. Dith Pran comes into the room where Sydney
is typing. Sydney is angry that Pran
is late. Pran tells him that people
are afraid there will be a bloodbath when the Khmer Rouge take over. Sydney tells him that arrangements have been
made to remove Cambodians who worked for Western governments. Dith Pran and his family can leave. "Do you want to leave, or do you want
to stay?" Dith Pran ponders this.
"How about you?" "That's none of your business."
Sydney repeats the question. Dith
Pran says, "I know you love my country.
Me, I'm a reporter." In a quiet scene Pran tells his wife
and family that they must leave the country as soon as possible. He will stay. 15. The evacuation of Americans and others who
have worked with the Americans begins. Helicopters
arrive on the grounds of the American embassy. It is a chaotic scene. Thousands of people are at the gates of the
embassy. They want to escape before
the Khmer Rouge arrive in the city. Cambodians
have to stand behind the gates of the embassy entrance and have their names
checked off a list of evacuees. Sydney arrives at one of the gates and asks the officer if the Pran
family have arrived. No sight of them
yet. He spots Al taking photographs
and asks him if he has seen Pran. But
Al hasn't seen him either. The American ambassador and his staff
leave the embassy in a limousine. Finally,
Pran and his family arrive at the gates. They are denied access, because the officer
mistakenly thinks the family has already gone through. So Pran leads his family around the perimeter
of the embassy grounds. He spots
Al, and runs to him. The American
ambassador and the embassy official who was Sydney's contact arrive at a staging
area, where the Marine helicopters are waiting. The ambassador clutches the American flag under
his arm. They get inside. Suddenly Pran and his family appear on the
grounds, and Sydney helps them move toward an awaiting helicopter. In moments his family are on board one of the
helicopters, Pran has moved back to stand with Sydney, and the helicopters
leave. Back at the hotel, Pran drops Sydney
off. Sydney gets out of the car and
takes a picture of Pran. Pran's face
is somber.
SEQUENCE
FOUR * * * * * * * * * * 16. More waiting. The reporters wait at the hotel.
No one knows what will happen next.
John Swain, a British journalist, tells Sydney, "If the going
gets rough, the best bet is the French Embassy." Later, Sydney steps out of his shower and begins to trim his beard.
Pran opens the bathroom door and tells him the Khmer Rouge are entering
the city. The Khmer Rouge enter the city. Armored personnel carriers are crowded with
young soldiers, some of them ten or eleven years old. All the soldiers wear the red scarves of the Khmer Rouge. The vehicles parade through the streets.
People wave red flags and sing happily. Pran is ecstatic.
He hugs Sydney and runs into the street to shout for joy "No
more fighting!" But Sydney is
skeptical. He suggests to Al, the photographer, that they
go to the hospital in Phnom Penh. 17. The scene at the hospital is gruesome. Many people have had amputations. Many are burned. There are few hospital staff to look after the wounded and dying. Blood and bodies are everywhere. Sydney, Pran, John Swain, and Al move through
wards, then enter an operating room. A
British doctor complains there is no blood for transfusions. "Plenty of blood, gentlemen. Problem is, it's in the wrong fucking place." He removes shrapnel from a child's back. 18. When Sydney, Pran, Al, and other journalists
leave the hospital, their car is stopped by an armored personnel carrier.
All are ordered outside of the Mercedes.
The journalists are ordered inside the personnel carrier.
The Khmer Rouge don't want Dith Pran to get inside.
Finally, he bribes his way inside by giving up his watch. The door is shut. They are forced to sit inside the personnel
carrier for a scary ride through the streets of Phnom Penh. Along the way reaction shots of the prisoners
inside the personnel carrier. Sydney takes a flower out of his pocket and
places it inside his palm, then holds his hands up to his face as if trying
to maintain control of himself. More
reaction shots of terrified faces. 19. Finally, they arrive at a holding area and
are marched together, their hands in the air, while they are surrounded by
young people with automatic weapons. All
is chaos. Pran keeps his palms together
in the sompeah, the gesture of respect Cambodians traditionally gave one another.
But the leader ignores his pleas.
The prisoners are marched into a holding area where other Cambodians
are held prisoner. Suddenly one of the Cambodians is shot in the
back with an automatic weapon. Reaction
shots of Sydney and the others. Then begins a long stalemate. Pran tries to talk to their captors and gain
their release. But he seems to make
no headway. We watch a Khmer Rouge
soldier point his weapon at three prisoners squatted in front of him. He shoots the third man through the face.
The man falls dead. Reaction shots of Sydney and the others, who
are also squatting in a row a few yards away.
A second shot is heard. Pran
keeps pleading with the leader. Then
transition shots, and change in sound level, to suggest passage of time. Pran still talking softly to the leader.
Sydney watches him. From his point of view we see Pran turn toward
him, then nod his head, as if to say, "It's okay." More talking.
Then
a Khmer Rouge soldier comes over to Sydney, begins to taunt him, but then
pulls him and the others to their feet and lets them gather up their belongings. The prisoners walk away from the holding area.
Sydney turns to Pran, who is walking next to him, and asks, "Is
everything all right?" Pran tells him to keep walking. They begin to leave the city. They push a Red Cross vehicle. Crowds of Cambodians are everywhere. Music up. We hear an operatic aria as the mass of humanity fills the frame.
Then a montage of people in the crowd.
Sydney, Dith Pran, and the others move in a different direction from
the Cambodians. They turn back to look at the multitudes evacuating
Phnom Penh. Music reaches a climax as crowds fill the frame. 20. Pran and Sydney join scores of others who
climb over the gates of the French embassy in order to find asylum there. At first the French don't want Pran to stay, because he is
Cambodian, but Sydney persuades them that Pran is with him.
SEQUENCE
FIVE * * * * * * * * * * Waiting game. The embassy grounds are crowded. Sydney walks across the grounds to where Pran
is sleeping. Time passes. Sydney, Pran, Al, and John Swain sit on a balcony,
gossip, and laugh. Then former officials of the Lon Nol
government are taken away. As one
French journalist says, "Farewell to the ancient regime." Everyone knows they will be killed. 21. More waiting. Sydney learns from John Swain that all Cambodians will be asked
to leave the embassy. But that means
Pran will be turned over to the Khmer Rouge for certain death or torture.
Al and John Swain, the British journalist.
Al tells him, "Pran won't last five minutes out there."
Then Swain hatches a plan to save Dith Pran. He shows him two of his passports, one out of date (but with a visa
that is still good). His name in both
is listed as John Ankertill Brewer Swain.
He tells Al that if they remove the first and last names from the latter passport, and substitute
Pran's photo in place of his, then Pran, alias "Ankertill Brewer,"
will be a British subject and able to leave the embassy. Sydney saying goodbye to Pran outside
the gates. Pran says he will try to
escape from the Khmer Rouge. "Give
me two or three weeks." He starts
to leave. But Al runs up to say they
have a plan. Pran watches the Cambodians
leave the grounds. 22. Conference with Pran. Al wants to know if Pran has any photos.
He doesn't. Al assures him he will find film. The hunt
is on to find the necessary materials. Al runs up to Sydney and announces ecstatically,
"I've got the camera, I've got the film, and I've got the fucking darkroom!"
They embrace. Al gets to work. He takes a picture of Pran: "Very serious.
Very American," he orders. Then
Al begins to work in his impromptu darkroom.
John Swain holds the light for him. In the meantime, Pran practices
his new name. But the fixer won't hold for the first two
tries. Each time the image dissolves
before their eyes. Sydney and Pran
wait together. But the third time
the image fixes, and Al whoops for joy. Then
we see him outside the darkroom. He
goes over to Pran, bends down, and says, "Welcome to New York." Pran embraces him and repeats his new name,
"Ankertill Brewer." 23. But everyone has to wait through a long delay
while the Khmer Rouge authorities examine everyone's passport. Pran waits glumly through this delay. Then comes the news: in 24 hours the journalists
will be given safe passage. It is raining. An embassy representative shows John Swain
the passport of Mr. Brewer: the picture is missing (the image has dissolved
on the paper). Sydney tells Pran that they have failed. Pran will have to give himself up to the Khmer Rouge. Sydney tries to comfort him. A quiet scene. Sydney and Pran sit together. In one scene Pran brings some tea into a room
where Sydney is sleeping. 24. It is raining. We see the farewells between Pran and the other journalists. One of the journalists accuses Sydney of wrongdoing
because he did not get Pran out earlier. But Pran intervenes and tells the man, "I'm a reporter, too.
I know his heart. I love him like a brother. I'll do anything for him." Sydney and Pran walk out into the rain.
They say goodbye. As Pran walks off, we hear his voiceover, as
he tells Sydney to take care of his wife and children. "Please I don't want anyone to be bad
to my wife." Music up as we focus
on a closeup of Sydney as he stands in the rain.
SEQUENCE
SIX * * * * * * * * * * 25. Transition to another scene: Sydney stands
below the skyline of Manhattan. He
is safe at home. We hear his voiceover
as he tries to trace the whereabouts of Dith Pran through various agencies,
including the Red Cross. Then we see
shots of Sydney writing letters to government and Red Cross authorities. He is trying to locate Pran. At one point we see several photographs of
Pran ready to be inserted into the various letters. 26. Sydney visits Pran's family, who are living
temporarily in New York City. Pran's
wife is certain he is dead. But Sydney
tries to persuade her that Pran is resourceful and may very likely still be
alive. 27. Sydney at home. He is somber, even depressed. He
listens to the an aria from "Nessum Dorma," the opera by Puccini.
He puts a tape in his VCR and sits down to watch it.
As he watches the tape, we see reaction shots of him.
He sits holding the remote control and watches a tape of President
Nixon explaining why he sent troops into Cambodia--to root out the North Vietnamese
who had sanctuaries there. Images
on the television show Marines teaching Cambodian troops the fine points of
combat. Reaction shots of Sydney watching
intently. Back to Nixon's speech.
"We will aid Cambodia. Cambodia is the 'Nixon Doctrine' in its purest
form." Cut to an image of a B-52
bomber. Cut to Sydney. Cut to closeup of his remote control. He pushes a button. The bombs pour out of the B-52 at 10X normal
speed. Reaction shot of Sydney. He looks left. From his point of view we see the photograph taken when Pran dropped
Sydney off at the hotel and Sydney took the picture of Pran sitting in the
car. Pran's face is filled with sadness.
Cut to Sydney. He looks at the television. Scenes of violence, death, people being carried
away roll by at 10X normal speed. Screen
fades to white-- 28. --to a shot of the sky. Camera down to show a scene of thousands of
Cambodians working in muddy fields in the new Republic of Kampuchea (formerly
Cambodia). The Khmer Rouge guards
stand watch over the workers. Suddenly
we notice that one of the workers is Dith Pran.
There are speeches in the rain, then food is served. Each worker gets a bowl of gruel. Dith Pran grabs a tiny lizard to add some protein
to his diet. 29. End of work day. The "new people," the people who supported the Lon Nol
regime, or people from the city, or professional people and educated people,
are marched back to their living quarters.
Pran checks his tomato plants and holds one of the tomatoes up to his
mouth. An indoctrination session in the work
camp. We hear the voiceover of Pran,
as if he were addressing Sydney directly.
We learn that in this new Eden of Kampuchea, the word for "Cambodia"
in that country's native language, children are uncorrupted and therefore
pure. All that is civilized and cultured
is evil. Thus, all are forced to evacuate
cities and learn to live in the country.
All that is of the past (family ties, education) are bad.
There is a new order of things. The
party, Angka, is the new family, the new father, the new mother. Pran's voiceover: "Sydney, I think
of you often . . . they tell us that God is dead and now the party, Angka,
will provide for us. The enemy is
inside us. No one can be trusted."
We see a child stand up in the indoctrination session and cross out
a picture of a family. "We must be like the ox and have no thought
except for the party. No love, but
for Angka." A little girl pulls
up Pran's tomato plants. "People
starve, but we must not grow food. We must honor the comrade children, whose
lives are not corrupted." The little girl looks hatefully at Pran. 30. Another indoctrination session. The leader calls upon doctors, professors,
students to stand up and renounce their former selves. He tells them that Angka needs them. Some of them volunteer. Where do they go when they are taken away?
Pran sits cautiously not looking left or right. We hear his voiceover:
"Now is the year zero, and everything is to start anew.
I'm full of fear, Sydney. I
must show no understanding. I must
have no past."
SEQUENCE
SEVEN * * * * * * * * * * 31. A young girl looking for Pran. But he is hiding behind his shack. She comes back to lead several people away.
She is carrying blue plastic bags in her hands.
Obviously one of those bags was intended for Pran.
We hear Pran's voiceover: "The war has killed love, Sydney. And those who confess to the Angka vanish,
and no one dare ask where they go. Here
only the silent survive." Pran
watches the prisoners taken away. Shots
ring out. A caravan of workers. Suddenly a young boy picks out a man sitting
on a wagon just behind Pran, who is walking alongside and carrying a hoe
over his shoulder. The man is dragged
away. Where will he be taken? What
will happen to him?
32. A quiet dusk scene. Pran sneaks into camp while the guards sleep.
He slits the skin of several cows and sucks their blood for nourishment.
He holds the bells around their necks to make no unusual sounds. But as he creeps back over the fence, he is
captured, beaten, and dragged away. Pran is tortured by the guards. He is tied to a tree by a rope around his neck.
A young Khmer Rouge leader, no older than 18, threatens to cut off
his head. Pran lies on the ground. The rope is still around his neck. The young Khmer Rouge leader comes back.
He sits close to Pran. Then he takes out his knife and holds it up
to Pran's face. "Mercedes, number
one," he says. Then he cuts the
rope and walks away. 33. Pran is working in a rice field. Various people are planting rice. Suddenly a young girl picks out one of the
workers as corrupt. He is led away.
Pran sees the telltale sign of blue plastic bags.
He knows the worker being taken away will be killed.
Will he be next? Pran escapes
by floating away in the shallow water of the rice field.
He runs across fields and wooded scenes. Pran comes upon a wasteland of abandoned
rice fields. The wasteland is littered
with stumps. Suddenly Pran slips and
falls in a mudhole. He looks around
him and cringes. Everywhere there are skulls, bones, bodies decomposing.
Many of the bodies have blue bags around the heads.
Pran has come upon the "killing fields," where some of the
million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge were dumped.
Pran stands up and looks around the scene. Everywhere he looks he sees more bodies. Pran is surrounded by skeletons. He continues walking away from the scene.
34. Dissolve to a scene in New York City. Sydney Schanberg is receiving the award for
journalist of the year in 1976 in a large ballroom. Sydney's speech: "Anyone who knows my work will know that half
of this award belongs to Dith Pran. Without
Pran I would not have been able to file half the stories I did.
It's nice to congratulate ourselves on occasions like this, but I can't
stop thinking of those innocent people Pran dedicated himself to helping me
bring to the notice of the American public.
As they pondered their options, the men who decided to bomb and then
invade Cambodia concerned themselves with many things, great power conflicts
and collapsing dominoes, looking tough and dangerous to the North Vietnamese,
relieving pressure on the American troop withdrawal from the South.
They kept the bombing of Cambodia secret as long as they could. But they were not concerned with Cambodians themselves, not with
people, not the society, not the country, except in the abstract, as an instrument
of policy. Pran and I tried to record
the concrete consequences of those decisions to real people, to human beings,
the people who were left out of the administration's plans, but who paid the
price and took the beating for them. I
accept this on behalf of Dith Pran and myself. I know that Pran would be very proud." After the speech, Sydney moves through
the crowd. He introduces someone to
his sister and refers to his father being present, too. 35. Then he escapes into the bathroom, where first
someone asks for his autograph, and then he is accosted by Al, the photographer,
who tells him, "Very impressive. I was hoping you'd burst into song." Then Al lowers the boom: "It bothers me
that you let Pran stay in Cambodia so you could win this fucking award, and
you knew that you needed him--" Here
Sydney interrupts: "I had no idea what was going to happen!" Al tells him, "--The fuck you didn't." "I did everything I could. I've sent out hundreds of photographs."
They continue to argue. "I
can't believe I'm hearing this from you!" Sydney says.
Al walks out. Back to the reporters. One asks Sydney about the responsibility he
and others bear for what happened to the people after the Khmer Rouge took
power. "We made a mistake,"
he says. ""Maybe what we underrated was the kind of insanity that
seven million dollars worth of bombing would produce." 36. At home, Sydney is comforted by his sister.
He is watching himself being interviewed after the awards program.
He looks depressed. He goes
over all of his attempts to locate Pran.
"I never gave him any choice." He recalls a time Pran tried to discuss leaving. "I never discussed it with him. He stayed because I wanted him to stay."
And then he thinks aloud, "And I stayed because . . ."
SEQUENCE
EIGHT * * * * * * * * * * 37. Transition back to Cambodia. Pran is asleep on a dike of a rice field.
Suddenly three Khmer Rouge come upon him.
He is captured again. We see him singing a lullabye to a Khmer Rouge
leader's small child, a son. His new
boss questions him. Pran pretends
that he does not know French. He explains
that he was a taxi driver. Pran feeds the leader and his associates.
The men try to trick Pran into speaking some French but he won't
rise to the bait. But the leader looks suspicious. 38. That night we hear a voiceover from Pran,
as if he were speaking to Sydney: "I'm trapped, Sydney. I know he suspects me and yet he treats we
well. Angka says we must regain our
old lands from the Vietnamese. Now
they say we must fight them. I miss
you, my wife, my children. And my
heart hungers for news of you." Later, Pran sneaks into a room and listens
to the British Broadcasting system's news program. Suddenly the leader comes in on him. Now he is found out. 39. The next morning the leader confronts Pran.
He knows that Pran speaks English.
So the leader speaks to him in English and shares his story:
"I love this country. I
sacrificed everything for it. My wife
died for the revolution. But the leader
of Angka no longer trust the people, so I can no longer trust them. And they don't trust me. I really fear for the future. I think you love my son. For his sake, look after him." Then he leaves. Pran muses on this conversation.
We hear his voiceover: "The fighting is close by, Sydney. If the Vietnamese get here, Angka will destroy
everything. And they will find only
ashes." The Khmer Rouge begin to burn crops to
prevent the advancing Vietnamese from having access to them. While they are engaged in this action, we see
the leader arguing with some of his subordinates. An associate of the leader hands the little boy some papers. Suddenly two Vietnamese jets bomb and strafe
the settlement. Pran runs to protect
the little boy and comfort him as the attack continues. Many people are killed. Then the jets fly away. At the end of the attack, the leader's
little boy gives Pran a map, with pictures of his family, papers, and American
money that was given to him by an associate of his father. The map shows an escape route into Thailand.
40. The next day the Khmer Rouge are preparing
to leave the area. A young woman,
one of the workers, is a prisoner. While
the leader watches from the porch of his hut, the young woman is shot with
an automatic rifle. He hands the little
boy over to Dith Pran and says, "I must try to stop the killing."
He strides across the yard to another hut and confronts another Khmer
Rouge leader. Before he can say more than a few words, that
man turns around and shoots him in the chest. Pran holds onto the boy. Suddenly
the Khmer Rouge are shown packing up and leaving to escape the advancing Vietnamese
troops.
SEQUENCE
NINE * * * * * * * * * * 41. Pran gets out the map and begins to plot his
escape. He is joined by several associates.
They all set out through the jungle. They hide when they see jets flying
overhead, and soon they are deep into the jungle.
216 00 At a point farther away from the settlement,
Pran and another man separate from the others. Now Pran, the little boy, and the one man set
off alone. 42. Later, the men are asleep when the little
boy, who is sitting up, spots some advancing soldiers coming through the jungle.
He alerts Pran, who warns the other man.
They are not spotted by the soldiers. They keep moving toward the border.
As they walk down a hillside, suddenly the man holding the little boy
steps on a mine. At first we hear the "click" of the
trigger. Pran yells at the man to
throw him the little boy. But it's
too late. The mine goes off. The man is killed, and the little boy is mortally
wounded. 258 00 Pran runs across the hillsides. He holds the little boy in his arms. Eventually he stops running when he realizes
the little boy is dead. He cries and
holds the dead child tight to him. 265
00 Later, Pran cremates the little
boy according to the Buddhist rituals. 43. Pran continues walking toward the Thai border.
We see him moving slowly through the jungle, then over hillsides pitted
with boulders, and finally at the crest of a hill, where he looks down on
what appears to be a small settlement. Reaction
shot of Pran. Then point of view shot shows a telescopic
shot of the settlement, which turns out to be a Red Cross camp just on the
other side of the Thai-Cambodia border. Reaction
shot of Pran in medium closeup. Music up to climax. Camera
in to a tightly framed closeup of Pran. 44. This shot dissolves to a shot of Sydney running
down a hallway toward the camera and entering the newsroom where he works.
Music changes to upbeat Cambodian melody.
Sydney is leaping for joy. He
has just gotten a call that Dith Pran was located in a Red Cross camp.
He tells everyone in the newsroom the good news. Then he calls Pran's family. "Is your mother there?" A pause. "Write
it down! I've got a message from your
Dad!"
45.
At
the refugee camp, Pran is wrapping gauze around the stub of an amputee's leg.
Someone tells him he has a visitor.
The camera follows Pran as he walks down the corridor to the door of
the shelter. From his point of view we see Sydney
getting out of a car. Several Cambodian
children are standing around the car. In
the background John Lennon's song, "Imagine," begins to play.
Reaction shot of Pran. Music level up. He moves forward, and the camera moves left until both are in the
frame. Reaction shot of Sydney. Reaction shot of Pran. He runs to Sydney in parallel shots and jumps
into Sydney's arms. Reaction shots
of bystanders. Two shot of Pran and
Sydney. "Forgive me?" Sydney
asks. Reverse angle to show Pran.
"Nothing to forgive. Nothing." They embrace again. Freeze frame. Small insert photo of the real Sydney Schanberg. Reaction shot of Cambodian people. Two shot of Pran and Sydney. Freeze frame. Small insert photo of the real Dith Pran. Three more reaction shots of Cambodians.
Another embrace. Freeze frame. Graphic on screen: 9th October, 1979. Extreme long shot of the camp. Graphic on screen: Dith Pran, with Sydney,
returned to America to be reunited with his family. He now works as a photographer for the New York Times, where Sydney
Schanberg is a columnist. Cambodia's torment has not yet ended.
The refugee camps on the Thai border are still crowded with the children
of the Killing Fields. Freeze frame of young Cambodian boy holding
a small child in his arms. Color changes
to black and white image. Credits
begin. Music playing is a Cambodian
melody using traditional instruments. Since
the picture was completed, Sydney Schanberg was released from the New York
Times, and most recently was a columnist for Newsday.
Dith Pran has worked on behalf of refugees around the world. He continues to speak out on behalf of Cambodian
refugees. Dr. Haing S. Ngor won an Academy Award for best supporting actor
and has acted in programs on television.
In 1991 he wrote a book about his experiences called A Cambodian
Odyssey.
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Summary written by Robert E. Yahnke
Professor, General College, Univ. of Minnesota
Copyright by Robert E. Yahnke, © 2001
Permission granted for reprinting
for educational use only