This week we are taking another International film to join our “Hidden Gems” list – ‘First They Killed My Father’. The film is based on the book ‘First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers’, which was written by Loung Ung, based on her horrific experiences in Cambodia when the country was under the Khmer Rouge regime. The screenplay for the film was co-written by Angelina Jolie and Loung Ung, with Jolie ending up directing the film for Netflix. Check out the trailer for the film at the end of this article.
Set in 1975, the film follows a 5-year old Loung Ung who lived in Cambodia with her six siblings and parents. She lived a relatively happy life as a kid before the Khmer Rouge troupes rolled into her neighbourhood and forcefully started to evacuate the people from Phnom Penh (which had a population of two million at the time). After almost a 10 day trip, she and her family went to her father’s village, Kang Troupe. Loung’s father was a high ranking military police officer from the previous regime, so he had to keep himself unnoticeable among the rest of the village, to escape execution. What follows is the crux of this film.
The film shows the horrors she and her family endured during the next 5-year period. Her family gets split apart multiple times, with the siblings losing both their parents and a couple of their own as they try to find a way out of this war. The movie hits many of us hard; it is shown from the perspective of a 5-year old girl as she grows up in a war and turns into a child soldier for a short period of time, out of desperation. The inhumanity of war as well as the humanity among the few is shown in stark contrast and it is quite eye-opening. It is a must-watch, but beware, be ready to see some really violent scenes.
Angelina Jolie’s ‘First They Killed My Father’ is currently available for streaming on Netflix.