<em>First They Killed My Father</em> Is a Surprising, Devastating Triumph
Angelina Jolie’s new film follows the Cambodian Civil War and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime through the eyes of a young girl.
There’s only one scene in that isn’t told through the eyes of Loung Ung (Sareum Srey Moch), the young daughter of a high-ranking Cambodian government official who was swept up in the terror of the Khmer Rouge’s campaign of genocide in 1975. It’s the opening montage, one cutting between footage of Richard Nixon insisting on American neutrality in the country and newsreels of the violence and bombing that spilled over into Cambodia’s borders during the Vietnam War. “This is not an invasion of Cambodia,” Nixon intones over images of burning jungles
