Over a period of two years, Gray originally developed Swimming to Cambodia as a theatre performance piece. The original running time of the performance was four hours, and it was presented over two nights. Gray received a Special Citation for this work at the 1985 Obie Awards.[2]
The opening shots of the film show Gray walking toward The Performing Garage in New York City. He enters, and after passing the audience, takes a seat behind a table. On the table are a glass of water, a microphone, and a notebook, the latter brought by Gray. Behind him are two pull-down maps. One is a map of Southeast Asia and the other is a diagram of the bombing of Cambodia, which Gray tells the viewers/audience was called Operation Breakfast. There is also a back-lit projection screen showing a photograph of a beach.
Gray's monologue describes his experiences filming a small role in the film The Killing Fields, and the then-recent history of Cambodia up through the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. Three scenes from The Killing Fields that feature Gray are shown at various points in the film.
Production
The soundtrack for the film was composed and performed by Laurie Anderson, who would also score Gray's follow-up film, Monster in a Box. Gray returned the favor by providing the voice of a TV interviewer for her 1986 short film, What You Mean We?. No soundtrack album was released; Anderson later reused music from the film for a series of "Personal Service Announcements" which she produced in 1989 to promote her album, Strange Angels.
