The Killing Fields is a chilling film about the Cambodian genocide and the Khmer Rouge regime. Released in 1984, five years after the end of Pol Pot's reign, the film seeks to capture the chaos, devastation and relentless violence that occurred in Cambodia, a country thrown into conflict by the echoes of the Vietnam War. Throughout the film, thoughts of fear and violence flood the viewer through scenes of bombing and guerrilla warfare to the dangerous soundtrack that unfolds behind Pran's time in the labor camp. The Killing Fields uses subtle depictions of violence to show the viewer how it affected Cambodians and to explain how genocides occur overall. In the first ten minutes of The Killing Fields, David Chandler explains that many Cambodians saw “their country essentially as a happy place, visited by war.” He also says they were amazed by the Khmer Rouge soldiers, who "'didn't even look like Cambodians, they looked like they were from the jungle, or from a different world.'" In the film, the Khmer Rouge approach the capital by cutting off the road to the airport. During this scene, which includes Schanberg and Pran zooming in and out of a Coca Cola factory as citizens flee the area, a young girl's screams can be heard over the roar of machine guns and the mass exodus. Even though children often cry, it's easy to see how Joffé wanted his tears to mean something more, to show the desperation of a country that was tearing itself apart. Killing Fields provides them with a screen bearing the words: “Cambodia's torment is not yet over. The refugee camps on the border with Thailand are still crowded with children from the extermination camps." The violence inflicted on the Cambodian people would not be validated until 2014, when the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were formally accused of genocide, meaning that in many ways, especially psychologically, violence was still being inflicted on the victims of the Khmer Rouge and their families. . Stephen P. Marks describes this phenomenon in his article documenting the history of elusive justice for victims of the Cambodian genocide. There were several genocide show trials after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was put on trial by members of his own party in 1997. When UN officials demanded that the Khmer Rouge hand him over, he died, rather suspiciously, of a heart attack. That trial and the 1979 Vietnam-led trials were internal and corrupt affairs. An international tribunal, Marks explains, would lead to better peacebuilding after the trial and validate the suffering of Cambodians lost in the death camps. In a title screen, The Killing Fields implies that for years Cambodians have been silently raped while waiting