The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé, 1984)

An American journalist witnesses the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge hostile regime first hand in Cambodia.

The story is gripping and interesting. It switches point of view from Schanberg's more detached perspective to Dith Pran's spectacular flight from Cambodia into a refugee camp. The film is so densely packed with atmosphere and many details that I couldn't look away for the two and a half hours. The ending is touching and doesn't feel over the top at all. I believed all the horrible events Dith Pran had to live through. (There is a brilliant young John Malkovich, too)
It is also a film about Western ignorance and without being moralistic about it, the film makes a very clear point. We just don't care, after all. Even when we pretend we do.
The cinematography was stunning, so was the editing. I decided to look at the first battle scene around minute 27. The Khmer are attacking and Schanberg has wants to document this for his newspaper. They arrive on site in an old hangar - ironically filled with crates of Coca-Cola bottles. I am quite amazed about how economically this was shot and edited. The master shot is a tracking shot (called H) which in its entirety lasts close to 45 seconds!

SET: Inside the depot
A soldier is cooking something over a fire.	Fixed camera, long lens. (3s)	A
Two soldiers carry a dead dog on a stick into the hut. The jeep with Shanberg passes them.	PAN and track. The set is established clearly. (13s)	B
They get out of the car. The American soldier greets the local army staff.	Tracking shot, we follow the american soldier. Dinh is in the back. (12s)	C
Dinh and Shanberg watch.	Fixed reaction shot, with focus shift onto Shanberg. (4s)	D
Asoldier and local commander exchange.	Fixed, Long lens, silhouette. (4s)	E
Dinh and Shanberg follow the soldiers to the map table	Tracking shot. (8s)	F (very similar to C but the tracking has changed)
Other soldiers bring a dead dog on a stick and lower him to the ground.	Fixed long lens (5s)	G
Al looks at the wounded between the Cola Crates. An explosion	PAN follows Al as he climbs around – until the explosion (11s)	H
The soldiers at the table react.	Camera is lower than before. (2s)	I
An explosion behind the Coke crates. Dust falls from the ceiling, covering the image.	Fixed camera (4s)	J
Al looks at the explosion runs away and takes pictures. Soldiers rush into the dust. An American soldier helps carry out the wounded.	PAN on Al continues until he passes an American soldier – camera follows him back to the site of the explosion (slight tracking at the end) (20s!)	H (Cut back to)
People rushing past the camera, a covered body in the bg on a stretcher	Long lens (4s)	K (same position as H but fixed and long lens)
More soldiers are carrying out people	PAN follows soldiers as they run out of the hut (7s)	H (Cut back to)

Odd Man Out (Reed, 1947) #TSPDT #469

An underground rebel is wounded during a heist and tries to evade the manhunt in Belfast. The story is of a steady decline towards the unsurprising end of terrible consequences. James Mason is quite astonishing as the soft-spoken hero, whom you just cannot imagine of doing anything as bad as scaring a child, let alone a robbery. Obviously, he does both in the film and much more. His endless odyssey which is much less about him than the various Belfastian characters towards him and - although explicitly denied by the filmmaker in a bizarre opening title card - ultimately about the struggle for independence in Northern Ireland (or any similar situation) There were two or three moments in the film that didn't hold up for me as well as they should, but the crazy painter and his bizarre co-inhabitant made it all up - a bold selection of outright frightening men from the fringes of society. There is no need to decipher the symbolism (payoff might be even bigger) - it's simply e...

Time of the Gypsies / Dom Za Vesanje (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

A supernaturally gifted boy from a Gypsy community is forced to survive in the world of crime. The intriguing qualities of Kusturica's films I've seen is his relentless depiction of basically crazy communities. Not just agreeably potty, they're usually outright interstellar-nuts. Here, he follows the fate of the rather harmless boy Perhan, that leaves for Italy in hope of a better future for him and his loved ones. There are some enormously interesting images in the film that kept ringing long after. The ritual in the river and the last scene in the church ruin (with a horse standing somewhere far back in the image...). After sketchily mapping out the scenes it is surprising how rigorously three-acty the screenplay is constructed. The first act seems quite long in terms of time and number of scenes, but there is also a lot of imagery spent on depicting life in this crazy universe, which makes the second part in Italy much more believable. And there is a certa...

Scarface (de Palma, 1982) - TSPDT #490

A cuban refugee wreaks havoc on Miamis drug industry and realizes his version of the American Dream. The main character is really something - the acting is great and the character suffers from the most fatal of all flaws: He cannot lie - although in a practical sense he does exactly that. So his attacks on the american society he has worked so hard to become a part of work really great - he has a deep insight but at the same time he is hypocrite enough to fall in the same trap in a way. The only time when I felt that the script had to "pull" a little to take the story where it wanted it is when Tony's mother calls to ask about his sister. Her character was a little too much on hating Tony.

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