Year Zero History

Cambodia is a country that has been deeply affected by political warfare since the 1960s but was greatly affected by the reign of communist party known as the Khmer Rouge. Pilger, in his film Year Zero speaks to the shocking state of Cambodia after the genocide that was led by Pol Pot and his regime. The film gives an in depth understanding of the effects after the four years of the regime in rule and gives further clarification to how it impacts politics within Cambodia for decades to come. Year Zero was filmed in 1979 only three years later from when Pol Pot was named prime minister and with his regime decided that the entire country of Cambodia would go through a transformation that he would call year zero. This was a totalitarian regime

It depicted the truth of the state of the country and showed the cities in complete disaster. The country was almost completely destroyed with forests growing in cities where life once bustled and religious temples or hospitals in complete ruins. The film does an accurate job of going through the history of what happened from 1975 to 1979. The information given on the Khmer Rouge rein during this time matches with historical political conditions of Cambodia. For example, in 1979 the same year the film was released Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and aided to dispose of the Khmer Rouge government (Khmer Rouge, 2016). Pilger specifically states throughout the film that the only aid that has been received by Cambodia has been sent from Vietnam. Even though Vietnam themselves were a country in need of assistance they were able to spare what little food they had and aided Cambodia with what little rice they could spare to try and feed the thousands of starving people. While the film states that the United States bombed Cambodia by permission of Nixon and Kissinger, it does insinuate that was why the Khmer Rouge regime was able to take over. However, political history shows that it actually destabilized what was an already fragile government. In fact, in 1965 the head of state of Cambodia named Sihanouk broke off relations with the United states and the radicals were not satisfied with