Pol Pot, communist dictator of Cambodia, has agreed to meet with a US journalist, and a Scottish academic. The American only gets a short time granted her, and is frustrated, but not surprised, by the lack of cooperation. But the Scot is a different matter. He’s written about Pot, about the revolution, and supports the policies of returning Cambodia to an agrarian society. He’s there to learn the truth first hand, to prove to the rest of the world that the Khmer Rouge are not the brutal regime that the outside world sees them as.
The structure gives us snippets of the discussion between the Scot (Bobby Bradley) and the self-styled Our Brother (David Lee-Jones), and the frustration of the journalist (Nicole Cooper) at her companions inability to see through the propaganda version he’s being fed. She also provides linking and background narration, and there photos from the period displayed..
Lee-Jones gives an enjoyable performance as the the seemingly reasonable dictator with a sharp edge to his moods. But his closing speeches feel heavy handed, and no real conclusion is drawn. We already know that brutal dictators are bad men, and that often the ideologues are the worst of all, but there’s nothing new here. Or am I asking too much from a 50 minute drama?
No comments:
Post a Comment