First They Killed My Father (2017)

Sadly Over-hyped

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

We had a plumber come by, and he was a very talkative fellow. He kept asking us if we had any questions about plumbing. When he was all done, we just chit-chatted for about an hour. His parents are from Cambodia, and we asked him a lot about Cambodian culture, and he mentioned this movie. It was on Netflix so I watched it.This movie is a dramatization about one little girl's experience during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It shows her experiences through her eyes. Almost all the dialogue is in the Khmer language with English subtitles. I hate subtitles because you miss what's going on when you're reading, but in this case they used the language to make it authentic.I hate to say this, but the dramatization is rather lame. It's watered down. The events portrayed in the movie do not even come close to showing how horrific this little girl's experience was. The movie is based on a book which is very well written. If you like the movie, then you should get the book. It's much more intense.It's an important movie. It's important that movies like this and "Schindler's List" and "Birth of a Nation" get made from time to time to remind us and to show the next generations how horrific these events are hopefully so the world will work together to stop events like these before they happen.

Having lived in Cambodia for over 18 months, I was glad to see a movie bringing the many atrocities of the Khmer Rouge to light, for the simple fact that far too many people have no idea what happened in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, and those who do, don't understand the why behind it. This movie not only fails to inform about the truth, but also intentionally misinforms with straight up non-facts that fit today's alt-left anti-US sentiment. All this amounts to both a simply terrible movie, and an utterly shameful insult to the upwards of 3 million victims of the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime. I understand the source material is the memoir of a survivor who was a young girl at the time, but the presentation of said source material is over produced, needlessly artsy, and even the supposedly emotional scenes lose impact because the film does not add any context to the events that unfold. Which is very coincidental, as the Khmer Rouge targeted intellectuals for extermination, this very movie leaves out a lot of facts which would make the false narrative purveyed by the director crumble to pieces. Looks like the alt-left ultra-communist playbook hasn't changed much after 40 years. Do yourself a favor and show respect to the victims of this tragedy by skipping this movie and reading some of the very informative books out there. Even better if you could actually travel to Cambodia and visit Tuol Sleng (S21 prison) and Choeung Ek (the killing fields).

I was delighted with the excellence of the acting in this movie. The children were amazing, and II loved their true emotion expressed. The history was so well played out; all production, etc. I enjoyed seeing the providential way the siblings ran across each other in their journey after being dangerously separated! Worth Seeing!

The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia attempted to end the class war in the most emphatic fashion, namely by ending the existence of the higher social classes. It evacuated the cities and attempted to construct a peasant nation, forcing so- called intellectuals into brutal work camps. In additionally intentionally killing anyone it identified as an enemy, it moreover brought famine upon those it did not intend to kill (though population reduction was arguably a goal in itself). Few if any other governments are responsible for the deaths of so many of their populations. The story was told famously in 'The Killing Fields', shot shortly after the overthrow of the regime, but Angelica Jolie has now made a new movie about this era, based on the testimony of a survivor. On one hand, 'First They Killed My Father' boldly eschews Hollywood-style narratives; on the other, it also eschews much in the way of explanation. A series of bad things happen to the daughter of a previously prosperous family, and that's all. Without the narrative, one feels this might have been better had it been shot as a documentary reconstruction. It would also have been interesting to learn more about what enabled the rise of the Khmer Rouge and what led Cambodia down such an awful path: the only answer we get is American bombing, but in Vietnam, for example, there was an orthodox communist regime that did not resort to pure genocide. As it is, the film is a worthwhile reminder of what awful things humans can do to each other; but not completely compelling as either story or history.