In a dense forest, a young Cambodian girl coaxes a tarantula from the trees, its furry legs gingerly creeping along the trunk. Does she mean to play with it? Is she safe? The next scene shows it folded on a stick, the young girl roasting it on a fire.
Childlike wonder and innocence fade fast in First They Killed My Father, director Angelina Jolie’s drama about one family’s experiences during the brutal Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia during the 1970s.
For those unfamiliar with these events, Khmer Rouge soldiers served the leadership of the Marxist dictator Pol Pot, killing about one-quarter of Cambodia’s population from 1975 to 1979 through executions, overwork in labor camps, starvation, and disease. Historians call this era the Cambodian Genocide, dramatized notably in the 1984 Oscar-winning film The Killing Fields.
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Airing on Netflix, First They Killed My Father stays largely in the point of view of Loung Ung, whom the film follows from ages six to seven and upon whose book the film was based. The adult Ung and Jolie both adapted the screenplay.
The film opens with the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” as then-US President Richard Nixon withdraws American troops from the area under the rationale of “helping the Cambodians help themselves,” as Nixon says in archived footage. Young Loung (Sarem Srey Moch) understands little of this, catching her reflection in the TV against images of tanks and soldiers. Meanwhile, her dad, known only as Pa (Phoeung Kompheak, The Gate), considers this an abandonment.
Pa served as a captain in the current regime’s army, enabling his wife (Sveng Socheata, Mind Cage) and seven children to live comfortably in the city of Phnom Penh. Loung steps up on the cinderblock railing of their high-rise apartment to watch planes fly overhead before the Khmer Rouge arrives, ordering everyone to leave for a few days because of impending bombings. The fearful glances of Loung’s parents show they suspect they’re not coming back.
Jolie (Unbroken) and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (In the Heart of the Sea) rely on close-ups and medium close-ups to put viewers in the family’s anxious shoes, along with setting the camera at about Loung’s height. The result is an immersive, heartbreaking, and harrowing look at the zeal of these forces and the average people hoping to survive.
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The film’s title aside, the Khmer Rouge doesn’t kill Loung’s father immediately. Rather, he hides his identity, burning his identification and lying that he’s a laborer at a seaport. But it’s only a matter of time before he rubs a suspicious someone the wrong way. One soldier who confiscates the family’s pickup truck for the government also demands Pa’s watch, then grills him about how he could afford something so fancy.
Some of the film’s most painful moments occur after Loung’s family walks for miles over several days among throngs of people. Khmer Rouge soldiers demand that any government workers, police officers, and teachers identify themselves. They rifle through belongings, seizing money and clothes, throwing away the fancy red dresses Loung’s sister wanted to pack for the New Year celebrations.
“No rich, no poor, we are all the same,” the soldiers bark, saying the government will take care of them. Yeah, right—that’s why these same soldiers call the Buddhist monks “parasites.” First They Killed My Father spends a fascinating chunk of time showing the propaganda spewed at these refugees daily as the soldiers set them to work, growing rice and vegetables amid the lush greens of the Cambodian countryside. They harvest the bounty for other soldiers, beat Loung’s sister for biting a string bean, and feed the workers gruel.
The kids remain kids for a while, marveling at the lilies and dragonflies at a lake or playing with beetles. Pa and Ma sneakily fry bugs stashed in their pockets for food late at night before anyone sees them. They also tearfully hatch a plan for how to stay alive if Pa is ever found out.
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At two hours and sixteen minutes, First They Killed My Father lags a bit in momentum toward the end, as time for Loung loses meaning. The girl shuttles from one camp to another, winding up in a training ground for child soldiers. Here, she learns a vigorous salute, how to fire an automatic weapon, and how to plant land mines—the carnage of which hits home as fleeing people blow apart in front of her. Newcomer Moch carries a lot on her shoulders as Loung, hiding behind a forced tough exterior until she finally breaks.
Ung’s story no doubt struck a chord for Jolie, who met with refugees as a United Nations goodwill ambassador and whose son, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, a Cambodian refugee, joins her and Ung among the producers. Yet First They Killed My Father is all the more affecting for its unsentimental portrayal of the horrors of war—and a sobering tribute to lives lost but not forgotten.
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