2003

Film stills from 'Killing Fields'

‘The Killing Fields’

Down a long straight road from Angkor Wat, sits the crumbling town of Siem Reap. Around the corner from the Star Mart petrol station, the only air-conditioned shop, is the Victory Guesthouse. It’s proud owner provides basic rooms and low cost food to tourists from all over the world, as well as tours, transportation, and entertainment on his state of the art VCD player. Guests have a choice from an eclectic range of films, Hollywood and Asian, and can watch in the comfort of the lightly covered veranda surrounded by shrubs and litter.

One afternoon I can no longer stand to see the owner littering his own property, and tell him so, explaining that if not for his own comfort but for his guests he should be making every effort to keep the place looking nice. At this, he claps his hands for his sister to come pick up the litter, criticising her for her idleness. He explains how there is no public rubbish collection and no other way of getting rubbish away from your house. The next afternoon there is a power cut. The man explains how electricity is often stolen from one side of the street to power government meetings on the other side of the street; as with the rubbish, a problem well beyond his means to deal with.

A friend who knows of my experience in Cambodia recently phoned me after hearing a programme on the radio which suggested that a kind of homicidal evil was a psychological trait common in all Cambodians. I’m not sure whether she was hearing things. I’m not sure whether someone could say that. I’m not sure what to believe about Cambodia and the Khymer Rouge. Was it the Indian, French, or American invasion that unsettled them so?

History, like a Chinese whisper, distorted; information mistaken, opinions biased, vested interests and justified intervention, and not one speckle of truth.

This film is a tribute to the children of the Khymer Rouge whose innocence shall never be restored.