Greetings before the movies, being true to my nostalgic personality, today I share a review about the movie The Screams of Silence from 1984, we are in a time when the political interests of nations seem to always be above the same people as the inhabits, that is, there are still wars in many countries at this time, that made me think a little about cinema and how it has been used so many times to share war stories and in some cases create a biased opinion about those involved in conflicts, however, war cinema will always be the king of cinema because more budget is invested in its productions and of course it reaches a larger audience because it attracts both lovers of dramatic cinema and fans of special effects and for course the action scenes, also people who like historical facts either to be a believer or to find inconsistencies in the plots and dates of movies, but I don't like all war movies, that is, I have my favorites and this is one of them, I owe this in part to my dad, he was a very old man and he rarely watched movies or rather he always knew she focused on work and if he saw something to distract him, it must be good, so since I was a child I always heard my dad say that the best movie he had ever seen was The Killing Fields, until one day when I was still a child I saw that they would broadcast the movie on national television in my country and it was the first time that a movie had such an impact on me, my dad was absolutely right, it is a great movie.

The film is based on real events which makes it even better, it is the story narrated by a journalist from the New York times where he recounts his experiences living in Cambodia in the 70s, when the communist regime was established in that country, There this journalist named Sydney Schanberg meets a Cambodian journalist named Dith Pran and he serves as his guide and interpreter.

The real journalists
Source
To have a bit of context in the 70s under the American mandate of Nixon, the war with Vietnam is lived, Cambodia has a border with Vietnam and that is why it is a point of interest in American politics, the capital of said country lives a incessant anxiety but at the same time its native inhabitants and a large part of foreign occupants do not see the seriousness of the situation coming, at that time the American bombings of the border parts of Cambodia and also the American invasion of the territory occurred, that was when the famous case of the massive bombing that a B 52 plane did, Sydney was the first reporter to make this event known to the world thanks to his colleague Pran who handled himself very well making contacts with Cambodians, he also spoke several languages and he was in charge of carry reports for international transmission.

These bombings of the border and rural areas caused many civilian deaths, so the Cambodian capital was filled with refugees. It is estimated that more than two million were in the capital when the Cambodian Communist Party guerrillas were gaining ground. the Americans decide to withdraw all the diplomatic personnel so the journalists who are under the protection of international treaties are vulnerable, they must decide to stay or go with the marines who would come to look for the people in the embassy, under these circumstances Sydney arranges everything so that his partner's wife and children can leave the country with the Americans, but Pran decides to stay with him to continue reporting the conflict.

The situation for journalists worsens when the Red Party forces triumphantly arrive in the city, the people of Cambodia see the arrival of the regime with hope because what the Americans had done was bomb innocent people for fear of the occupation of the Vietnamese in the border, however the new regime is authoritarian and extremist, it takes the remaining journalists as hostages but Pran manages to let them go alive and they take refuge in the French embassy.

Many things happen in the struggle of journalists to stay alive and united, but the French embassy is going to evacuate the foreign staff who are there and unfortunately only those with a foreign passport will be able to leave, Pran is a native of Cambodia so he will not you can go with your partner to the United States where your family is.

Up to this point the film seems to be the story of companionship, friendship and the calamities that Didney and Pran have had to go through, but I warn you that it is a film of almost two and a half hours, for which as if it were an opera, with the film's next arc then focusing on Pran and his survival.

The new party in power has a whole doctrine that they have imposed since that year called year zero, they reject consumerism and bourgeois capitalism, so they evacuate the capital and lead the population to do forced labor in the agricultural fields, they indoctrinate the children and they prohibit adults from any sign of the past, in the camps there is too much torture and massacre but at the same time there are many internal conflicts between groups of the same party and at the same time there is tension due to the occupation of territories by the Vietnamese, so our protagonist Pran tries to survive in silence in the labor camps trying not to show at any time that he is a cultured person who is even a polyglot.

The Cambodian communist party regime fell in 1979 but until then too many people died in the camps, seeing all the things that Pran experienced in a film is simply disturbing, the film is masterfully made, the music creates more tension at the right moments, however, this part or arc of the movie that is calmer in terms of the use of explosions and gunshots, at the same time is the most harrowing part, because that is where you really see the horror of the movie. war and the imposition of extremist doctrines whatever the interests, people just wanted to survive, the hostile and depressing environment contrasts with the beauty of the landscape at a certain moment, at the beginning of the film they said that this country was like a paradise for tourists and It is almost at the end of the film that its true beauty is seen, in its fields and mountains.

It is worth mentioning that this film was nominated for seven Oscars, but what stands out the most is the wonderful performance of Haing Ngor in the role of Pran, because he did not have any previous experience in the cinema but he did have experience in surviving the war, he lived through the war in Cambodia and was taken to a forced labor camp and that's why his performance seemed so genuine. I believe that no war is justifiable anywhere in the world because innocent people are the ones who suffer.

# Espero les haya gustado. Les invito a leer mis próximas publicaciones y siempre estaré dispuesta a responder sus preguntas y comentarios, también pueden seguirme y contactarme en cualquiera de mis redes sociales. ¡Muchas gracias!
I hope you liked it. I invite you to read my next publications and I will always be willing to answer your questions and comments, you can also follow me and contact me on any of my social networks. Thank you!
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