Genocide, through the eyes of a Child

‘First They Killed My Father’ is an important indictment

To get a sense of what living in North Korea is like today, watching “First They Killed My Father” would likely paint the harrowing picture.

It has nothing to do with the Kim regime. In fact, it’s set in Cambodia post-Vietnam War. But this unflinching portrayal of totalitarian oppression by the Khmer Rouge, in a four-year reign of genocidal terror that killed nearly two million people, is a bone-chilling reminder of how the past is repeating itself unabated.

Based on the memoir of Loung Ung, who was only five when the Khmer Rouge takeover began, “First They Killed My Father”—streaming exclusively on Netflix—isn’t just an important historical document. It’s a relevant wake-up call.

It’s also the most impressive directorial effort yet from Angelina Jolie.

As a re-creation of a time, place, and event, this is utterly convincing—and Jolie’s choice to cast native actors that speak the language certainly helps. Yet Jolie goes beyond telling this girl’s true story with stark verisimilitude. Masterfully, she captures it from Loung’s point of view even while largely avoiding literal POV perspectives.

Jolie’s use of film language is keen and constructs a very personal experience. The narrative flow is sequential yet loose. Time passes in subtle jumps. The plot, such as it is, doesn’t track a clear arc. More viscerally, we live through these events as perceived by an overwhelmed child.

Jolie gives us a comprehensive understanding of something perpetrated on a massive scale, but does so through an effectively intimate lens.

At first, the film feels a bit too familiar. We’ve seen these kinds of stories before, from movies about the Holocaust to African massacres and more. Though confidently made, the biggest sense of dread one has early on is that this will be another brutal but generic history lesson.

But when Loung and her family finally arrive at a forced labor camp, “First They Killed My Father” opens a window that I can’t recall a movie having looked through before, at least not this vividly.

The torturous conditions, abuses, and punishments are all there, yes, but added to that is the constant indoctrination of the Khmer Rouge’s communist ideology. It’s pervasive.

Through the camp’s loud speakers, during back-breaking work, and even at meals, dehumanizing dogmas are bludgeoned into people’s psyches morning, noon, and night. The soldiers damn Western values as vanity, but then pervert their repressive cruelty into a selfless virtue. The toll this all takes isn’t just physical. It’s psychological. And it’s absolutely debilitating.

“First They Killed My Father” is an important film. Most of all, it’s a harsh rebuke of the West, which ignored the Cambodians. It’s also an indictment of how we’ve done nothing to stop similar horrors from occurring in North Korea now.