I cried four times in two hours and sixteen minutes. No I was not stressed from school. And no I did not receive any sort of bad news. Instead, I watched the Netflix movie, First They Killed My Father, directed by Angelina Jolie. I have always admired Angelina Jolie’s work; both as an actress and as a director, so when this movie appeared on the list of suggested movies on my Netflix account, I knew I had no other option but to watch that night.
The film tells the story of the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. This national tragedy resulted in the death of over twenty five percent of Cambodia’s population. The film, an adaptation from her memoir, is told from the point of view of seven year old Loung Ung. Throughout the film the audience sees Loung and her family (her father, mother, three brothers, and three sisters) trying to survive against the hunger, brutality, and threat of separation that the Khmer Rouge drowns them in.
Sareum Srey Moch was the young girl who portrayed seven year old Luong Ung in First They Killed My Father. I was impressed by this young, yet highly remarkable actress and how she delivered such emotionally powerful moments throughout each scene of the film. As Luong and her family move from one labor camp to the next, she is eventually trained to be a child soldier. Sareum Srey Moch embodied the child soldier in a way that left me speechless.
What impressed me the most about this movie is how authentic it is. Director and producer, Angelina Jolie, made it her mission to create a documentary encompassing the very essence of what it was like to be a Cambodian during the Cambodian genocide. The film took place in Cambodia with actors and actresses who spoke Cambodia’s native tongue throughout the entire movie. What surprised me the most was that I later learned that Jolie had survivors of the genocide not only tell their stories during the making of this film, but many of those same survivors played actors and actress in the film.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who is not faint of heart. There are many scenes in this film that show the direct execution of Cambodian men, women, and children. Parents should be advised that it is children who are taught the skills on how to plant land mines, fire an AK-47, and kill Vietnamese soldiers in hand to hand combat. When soldiers of the Khmer Rouge are not directly killing off Cambodians, their land mines are. The scattered body parts of thousands of Cambodians who found themselves caught right in the middle of a land mine when fleeing from gunfire was very difficult to watch. By this point in the film I had cried three times and I still had thirty minutes remaining of the film.
Although this film is quite difficult to watch, I can not express that enough, I would give the film a four out five stars. This film did not just dug at the heart, but will completely yank at the heart of its audience. Angelina Jolie did a magnificent job in her adaptation of Loung Ung’s memoir reccounting of her time spent under the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide.
