Enemies of the People
This moving documentary is about the killing spree the Khmer Rouge performed in Cambodia. The narrator of this documentary brought the audience on an emotional ride through the actual killing fields where these horrible acts took place. Interviews were taken place with actual men who killed the innocent people of Cambodia.
The main focus of this documentary was to find out exactly why these people were ruthlessly murdered in these killing fields of Northwest Cambodia. Men, women and even children were victims of this awful killing spree. The narrator meant for this documentary to be for the history of the world; not journalism. Yes, he wanted to expose the truth about this awful even in history, but he did not want to point any fingers. His main goal was to make the citizens of the world aware of this event and have them know that this is was an important time in our history.
The scene that seemed to stick out most to me was when the narrator asked one of the actual men who performed these murders to give an example of how the innocent people were killed. He explained that when taken to the rice field, the victims would lay face down on the ground with their hands behind their backs. Then a member of the Khmer Rouge would lift their face up and slice or stab their neck with a knife. Why use a knife instead of a gun? It was explained by other men that the knife inflicted more pain and suffering than a gun would inflict. Other stories included how fathers would be ordered to go to the fields to be killed while the children were forced to watch their father get murdered in front of their eyes. Then the children were ordered to the fields where they would be killed as well. One story included how a member of the Khmer Rouge threw a little boy up into the air, and when he came down, the member stabbed him in the stomach.
The narrator, Sambath, has lost his own family to these horrible murdering acts in the rice fields. His objective was not to find out HOW they died, but exactly why. He was able to get information out of some of them men about the killing sprees. This award-winning documentary was the first film to expose this information after 30 years of silence. The members of the Khmer Rouge that are still alive are embarrassed and feel completely guilty about the whole situation, as they should be. I am utterly disgusted by not only the graphic stories that were told about the murders, but by the fact that these murders even took place. There was no clear explanation in the documentary as to why these murders took place, which made me a little angry. I watched a 93 minute documentary to learn about this and did not even find out why they were killing these innocent people. I just assumed that there was no reason, and that it was a horrible genocide that occurred in Cambodia.
The narrator filmed the entire documentary, so there were not fancy camera angles involved in the filming. When he was interviewing someone, he would zoom in on their face while they were talking. The narrator would also have shots of the field where the killing would take place for dramatic moments in the documentary. They way he filmed this made it feel as if the audience was in Cambodia watching everything happen right next to the narrator. The only lighting he used was the day light, which made it feel even more real for the audience. There were no actors, professional equipment or anything. It was a real movie, made by a native of Cambodia with a camcorder camera. The realness of the documentary made the emotions of the people even more real for the audience and touched the hearts of everyone in the audience.
I thought that the film was well done, considering it was made with a camcorder. The fact that it seemed so real made me feel like I was there at the interviews, asking the men myself how and why this event took place. Sambath understood to the needs of these men and it was truly inspiring to watch. All in all, this documentary was a great depiction of the truth and suffering that the innocent people of Cambodia had to go through.
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