First They Killed My Father (2017) and The Gate (2014) (Guest: Melanie O'Brien) (episode 37)

This episode looks at two films about the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s: First They Killed My Father (dir. Angelina Jolie), and The Gate (or Les Temps des Aveux) (dir. Régis Wargnier). First They Killed My Father is based on the memoir of Loung Ung, who was a five-year-old girl when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975. Loung Ung was forced to flee Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, with her family. Loung Ung’s parents were killed, and Loung Ung was separated from her siblings; after surviving in a forced labor camp, Loung Ung was forced to become a child soldier. The Gate tells the story of acclaimed French anthropologist, Francois Bizot, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Khmer Rouge for three months in 1971 on suspicion of being a CIA spy, and who later became the French embassy’s translator and intermediary with the Khmer Rouge until he was forced to flee the country. The films, which are both based on personal memoirs, provide a harrowing account of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. I'm joined by Dr. Melanie O’Brien, Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia (UWA) Law School and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Dr. O'Brien is a leading expert on genocide and international law, and is the author of acclaimed scholarly books and articles on the subject. 

Timestamps:

0:00      Introduction
3:42       Background on the Khmer Rouge
7:42        Khmer Rouge philosophy and tactics
11:50      Forced marriage
15:37      The role of propaganda
24:58     The use of child soldiers
27:48     Life after genocide
31:42      First They Killed My Father and the Cambodian genocide
38:08     Francois Bizot and Comrade Duch
40:10     The French embassy in Phnom Penh
43:52     The portrayal of Comrade Duch
46:06     The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)
55:06      Why Cambodia was a genocide
1:00:16    The Khmer Rouge’s destruction of culture
1:07:21     Transitional justice in Cambodia
1:10:33    The role of memoirs after genocide

Further reading:

Becker, Elizabeth, When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution (1988)

Bizot, Francois, The Gate: A Memoir (2004)

Killean, Rachel & Moffett, Luke, “What’s in a Name? ‘Reparations’ at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,” 21(1) Melbourne J. Int'l Law 115 (2020)

O’Brien, Melanie, “Le Temps des Aveux/The Gate” (review), Law & Culture (2016)

O’Brien, Melanie, From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens (Routledge Press 2023)

Sperfeldt, Christoph, “Collective Reparations at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,” 12 (3), Int’l Criminal L. Rev 457 (2012)

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