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| A colorful, absurdist poster for Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing |
This review is based on the 159 minute director's cut version of the documentary, which also exists in a 122 minute theatrical version and an even shorter version, (which is naturally best avoided.)
In 1965-66, Indonesia's new military regime demanded the country's Communists executed. The society's strata of gangsters thereupon carried out 1-2.5 mil. more or less mandated killings, and the group are to this day praised for this genocide. The film documents some of the prolific executioners from then, as they reconstruct their crimes for the camera today.
This hair-raising, deeply unusual war documentary contains despairing and incredible material, e.g. a happenstance real extortion, (the commonality of how it occurs underscores Indonesia's monstrous problems with governance, violence and morality), and morbid reconstructions of torture and murders as well as heart-wrenching testimonials.
By mostly focusing on the executioners, The Act of Killing also becomes a study in the flexibility of the human psyche and its propensity for the most heinous crimes imaginable. One of the film's most troubling qualities is the fact that it accomplishes a portrayal of the killers as humans instead of monsters. Indonesia, on the other hand, as a country, stands out as singularly perverse and despicable to me at least.
The film is a collaboration between Joshua Oppenheimer (The Entire history of the Louisiana Purchase (1998)) and co-directors Christine Cynn (The Globalisation Tapes (2003)) and Anonymous, ('Anonymous' appears 49 times during the credits and cover crew members who cannot be publicly known, because they fear retaliation from the death squads in Indonesia). The Act of Killing takes an at times surrealistic approach to its material and can come across not unlike a bad fever dream, and it is as stirring as it is provocative and oppressive, not a film that goes down easily, but certainly one that burns itself into the memory of those who see it.
Oppenheimer reserved his next documentary, The Look of Silence (2014), to the other side of the story; that of the millions of victims in Indonesia's bloody history.
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| The film's lead figure, the mass-murderer Anwar Congo here demonstrates how he used to strangle men to death with a metal wire, in Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous' The Act of Killing |
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| Same Congo here in a reconstruction scene towards the film's end, in which he starts to come apart about his past sins, in Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous' The Act of Killing |
Watch the trailer with English subtitles here
Cost: Approximately 1 mil. $
Box office: 0.4 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty
[The Act won the BAFTA as Best Documentary in February '14, where Oppenheimer in his speech called for the American government to acknowledge its co-responsibility for the killings. At the Oscars in March '14, The Act was Oscar-nominated as Best Documentary, but did not win. (The happy music documentary 20 Feet From Stardom (2013) did.)]
What do you think of The Act of Killing?
If you are Indonesian, how do you feel about the film and the portrayal of the frightful events in it?
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