Dith Pran in his hospital bed.One of my favorite films is one that I can barely stand to watch.
It's the story of two journalists, one a correspondent for the New York Times, the other a Cambodian photographer who is also the Times reporter's interpreter in Cambodia. The reporter was Sydney Schanberg. His interpreter was Dith Pran.
The film is "The Killing Fields," which tells the story of the Cambodian genocide by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, which took control of the country in 1975. Under the Khmer Rouge, anyone with any connection to the former government, anyone who had been a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, anyone who wore glasses (a sign of an intellectual), was either killed outright or sent to the camps in the Cambodian countryside, a more drawn-out form of death.
Pran, who saved his fellow journalists' lives, was sent there. For four years, he survived by pretending to have been a cab driver in civilian life, pretending he didn't understand English or know how to read. He survived torture, starvation, indoctrination, back-breaking labor.
"The Killing Fields" is almost never shown on TV. It's not a comedy, it's not a shoot-'em-up, not in the traditional sense. It's an adventure tale, but not the kind that people love because it's exhilarating.
It is, in short, a huge downer, even if Dith Pran does manage to walk his way out of death and starvation into a Red Cross camp in Thailand -- and a career as a photographer at the New York Times.
Because while Pran lived, millions of his fellow Cambodians didn't. And Pran has spent his life making sure everyone knows that -- and never forgets.
The man who played Dith Pran in the film, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, was himself a survivor of the killing fields. He watched his family die, and survived himself to come to the U.S., where he died in his driveway, the victim of a mugging. It's the definition of senseless: The man who survived hell on earth was cut down by a boy who wanted his watch.
Pran is 65 now, and has been diagnosed with cancer. As the Newark, N.J. Star-Ledger, which interviewed him recently, said, his survival came at a cost that's now due.
Somewhere in the four years of eating bugs and drinking water that had been tainted with poison and rotting, human corpses, there is the possibility that something made it into his body and is now wreaking havoc with his pancreas.
He is philosophical about the prospect of dying, though, as Buddhists are. He was supposed to have died 30 years ago, after all. Thirty years of borrowed time is a pretty good stretch.
Even now, when you'd think he's earned a rest, he's working. A documentary is in the works about him and his extraordinary life. He talks about becoming an advocate for early detection of pancreatic cancer.
His energy and eagerness to teach is longstanding. Until recently, I ran into him every year at the Asian-American Journalists Association conferences. He liked to talk shop with his fellow photogs, or give advice to aspiring shooters. The first year I ran into him, he told me how much he liked to go to college towns and talk to students about his experiences in the killing fields, how much he liked helping broaden the minds and hearts of young people who never heard his story -- or that of millions who died at the hands of their own government.
He was a rock star at these conferences. He rarely took a formal role on the panels or spoke at sessions, but he was always visible. He liked watching sessions from the back of the room, saying little. When journalists or students recognized him in the halls and came up to shake his hand, Pran was always gracious and generous with his time. He once chatted with me for upwards of an hour in a hotel conference room in San Diego, telling me about his work and how much he enjoyed meeting students, the ones who are often the most eager to hear his story. They have the most passion and curiosity, he told me.
Now it is others who give their time to help him while he is in the hospital. His ex-wife brings him food. Schanberg, now in his 70s, answers his mail. His many colleagues, fans and friends send him their best wishes.
It's a remarkably peaceful time for a man who endured unspeakable horrors. But perhaps it's merely what's due a man who opened so many people's eyes.
While he has made his life's work speaking about the worst we can do to each other, Pran's gentle faith and commitment to the truth bespeaks the best of ourselves.
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