|
The Act of Killing
| Released |
28 June 2013 |
| Director |
Joshua Oppenheimer |
| Producer(s) |
Signe Byrge Sorensen |
Origin
|
Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland |
| Running Time |
115 minutes |
| Genre |
Documentary |
| Rating |
TBC |
|
|
Portrait of a killer.
The Act of Killing is a documentary which is packed with surreal and disturbing images - but the most surreal of these takes place in a rather mundane setting, the studio of a daytime television talk show. As the audience clap encouragingly, the pretty female host quizzes her guest about the best way to exterminate a Communist. The guest demonstrates his preferred method (involving a length of wire) with undisguised glee as the host smiles and nods appreciatively. This dissonance between the most horrific crimes and the casual, offhand demeanour of their perpetrators, is genuinely disturbing and horribly compelling.
In the simplest terms, The Act of Killing is about the murder of almost one million people in the year following a military coup in Indonesia in 1965. When the new regime came to power, death squads targeted intellectuals, native Chinese and anyone who was suspected of being a communist, murdering them in cold blood and without trial. Rather than telling this story in a traditional manner, director Joshua Oppenheimer approached some of the men responsible for this genocide and suggested they tell their own version of the story - recreating how they see the events of that year.
This unique approach has yielded spectacular results. Allowing the men free rein to visually describe their terrible pasts has been more illuminating than standard interviews would have been. For them, their actions are to be celebrated and in re-enacting the atrocities they have committed, they are celebrating and documenting a proud history. If history is written by the victors, then this is their blood soaked autobiography. The ability of these men to live untouched by guilt is incredible, as is the ability of the wider Indonesian society to live in a climate of corruption and fear and more disturbingly, one that sanctions and celebrates mass murder.
This terrible callousness makes The Act of Killing a very difficult watch, that will leave you emotionally drained. For me though, it is an important piece of work and certainly the most morally complex film I have seen in quite some time.
-
Linda O’Brien |
