Episode 37: First They Killed My Father (2017) & The Gate (2014) (Guest: Melanie O’Brien)

Episode 37: First They Killed My Father (2017) & The Gate (2014) (Guest: Melanie O’Brien)

Jonathan Hafetz

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Description

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.

Guest: Melanie O Brien

Dr. Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law & Deputy Head of School (Research) at the University of Western Australia Law School; and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). Dr O'Brien was a 2023-24 Visiting Professor at the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, USA; and is a Visiting Scholar at the Human Rights Center, Law School, University of Minnesota. The International Criminal Court has cited Dr. O’ Brien’s her work on forced marriage, and she has been an amica curia before the ICC. She has been an expert consultant for multiple UN bodies, including the UN Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran. Dr O'Brien is the recipient of the Aurora Mardiganian Commemorative Medal from the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute for her work on the Armenian Genocide and Nagorno-Karabakh. Dr O'Brien is widely consulted by global media for her expertise on international criminal law. She has conducted fieldwork and research across six continents; and is part of the Ukraine Peace Settlement Project. Dr O'Brien is a member of the WA International Humanitarian Law Committee of the Australian Red Cross. She was a 2022 Research Fellow at the Sydney Jewish Museum & a 2023 Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Loughborough, UK. Dr O'Brien is the author of Criminalising Peacekeepers: Modernising National Approaches to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (Palgrave, 2017) and From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens (Routledge, 2023, Australian Legal Research Awards finalist).

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
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)

Publication Date

1-14-2025

Disciplines

Law

Episode 37: First They Killed My Father (2017) & The Gate (2014) (Guest: Melanie O’Brien)

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