A thinking man's odyssey into darkest depths of the human heart
Killing Fields of Cambodia may just be another assignment,
but the gods are about to show him what it's really all about.
Assignment Cambodia: A little light in the Heart of darkness
The Good
The Good
The Good
Director Gary Schmad has suffered from a bad case of wanderlust most of his life. "The Last Road to Cambodia" is the latest entry into his continuing odyssey on the open road of life. But anyone can go almost anywhere today, that's not the real challenge. The goal of a real odyssey or walkabout is to experience or learn something abo
Director Gary Schmad has suffered from a bad case of wanderlust most of his life. "The Last Road to Cambodia" is the latest entry into his continuing odyssey on the open road of life. But anyone can go almost anywhere today, that's not the real challenge. The goal of a real odyssey or walkabout is to experience or learn something about life itself as you travel that open road; to look death in the eye and ask what it is really all about.
Shooting a documentary in the northeast of Thailand back in '86 he chanced upon a some remnants of the all but defeated Khmer Rouge still fighting a rear guard action from the safety of their Thai sanctuary. Supported by the Americans, Thais and Chinese, their fight raged on for another decade until finally ceasing in '98. With that story still rumbling through his head, Schmad hit the open road to not only to find out and document what that war was all about but to have a few good times along the way. Is that bad? Maybe, but that's life. And that's what he found, a resilient people who had put most of the horrors of that nightmare behind them as they struggled to find a little peace, prosperity and even a little joy in their newly "liberated" land.
The Bad
The Good
The Good
The Khmer Rouge killed one-third of their population to bring about their version of a peoples' paradise on earth. Within 24 hours of toppling the capitol city of Phnom Penh they forced the citizens out to countryside to begin a radical agrarian experiment that not only divided families into draconian work camps that literally sucked th
The Khmer Rouge killed one-third of their population to bring about their version of a peoples' paradise on earth. Within 24 hours of toppling the capitol city of Phnom Penh they forced the citizens out to countryside to begin a radical agrarian experiment that not only divided families into draconian work camps that literally sucked the life right out of them but outright killed anyone with an education or ties to the previous government like "pulling so many weeds in a garden" (Pol Pot). Anyone who disobeyed or disapproved their edicts from the all powerful and knowing "Angkor" (a Wizard of Oz kind of ruse for the Khmer Rouge to hide behind) were either summarily killed or sent to a concentration camp where they were tortured until they admitted working for the CIA or KGB before they were taken out to the Killing Fields, where their bones still remain today. The entire country nearly starved to death before they were liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979. That might have been the end of that tortuous reign had not the US, China and Thailand shielded the remnants of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot to fight on until the late 90's.
The Ugly
The Good
The Ugly
The ugly truth is you can't really live until you know what you'd die for, but try telling that to the millions of Cambodians who lost their lives at the hands of the bloody Khmer Rouge. After a relentless B-52 bombing campaign by the U.S. trying to stop the Vietnamese infiltrating and supplying their troops over the Ho Chi Minh Trai
The ugly truth is you can't really live until you know what you'd die for, but try telling that to the millions of Cambodians who lost their lives at the hands of the bloody Khmer Rouge. After a relentless B-52 bombing campaign by the U.S. trying to stop the Vietnamese infiltrating and supplying their troops over the Ho Chi Minh Trail which ran right through the villages in north eastern Cambodia, thousands of poor Cambodians became nothing more than collateral damage while being played by the Khmer Rouge in their epic fight against the west, their own government and imperialism. If they still had any reservations joining the revolution, it was all but dashed when their beloved King Sihanouk joined ranks with the Khmer Rouge and helped lead his poor people to only more death and destruction.
Director Schmad dodged the Vietnam War only to end up Saigon years later trying to understand how that war bled all the way through to a holocaust in Cambodia. So, when they sent him on assignment right into the heart of darkness to cover the Killing Fields, he had no choice, he had to go.
The darkness be damned...