Plot
A documentary that challenges former Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
Release Year: 2012
Rating: 7.9/10 (1,141 voted)
Director:Anonymous
Storyline
A documentary that challenges former Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
Taglines:
A story of killers who win, and the society they build
Trivia:
The co-director, as well as over 20 other members of the film crew, are credited as 'Anonymous' because they still fear revenge from the death-squad killers. The 41-year-old Indonesian who shared directing credit with Joshua Oppenheimer, could only wonder, 'How could these people tell these horrible stories so lightly and so proudly? You just want to challenge them right away. But you have to keep telling yourself to be patient, to let them tell the story the way they like. Because then we can learn something about the whole system of destruction'. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 8/10
After viewing this film at its premier at the Toronto Film Festival I
can say two thumbs up.
In Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing," a pair of gangsters who
were responsible for murdering an untold number of suspected communists
in the years following the 1965 overthrow of the Indonesian government
get the chance to recount their experiences.
At first showing no visible remorse, the men boast of their
achievements, and Oppenheimer capitalizes on their enthusiasm with a
twisted gimmick: The men are given numerous opportunities to reenact
the murders for Oppenheimer's camera, sometimes emphasizing their
brutality and occasionally delivering surreal, flamboyant takes that
offer a grotesque spin on classic Hollywood musicals.
Playing make believe with murderers, Oppenheimer risks the possibility
of empowering them. However, by humanizing psychopathic behavior, "The
Act of Killing" is unparalleled in its unsettling perspective on the
dementia's associated with dictatorial extremes.
Oppenheimer's main focus is a lean man named Anwar Congo, one of
several former members of the Indonesian paramilitary organization
Pancasila Youth.
Drawing from American movie clichés for his image as a menacing bad
guy, Congo and one of his colleagues indulge Oppenheimer with stories
of their murderous achievements while also complaining about the
perception they face from the rest of the world.
"We have too much democracy," one of them says. Frequently, the men
refer to their power of gangsters as "free men," but Oppenheimer
gradually reveals that no matter how much they justify their past, they
remain trapped by the lingering feelings of discomfort that their
horrific deeds have planted in their heads.
Oppenheimer doesn't valorize Congo and his cohorts, but he does empower
them, a decision that firmly places in "The Act of Killing" in a moral
grey zone for much of its runtime.
Killers dress up in drag and act in demented filmed sketches that
include mock decapitations and other freakish acts while their friends
cheer them on. They embrace the idea of coming across as cruel for the
domineering presence it allows them.
But Oppenheimer's agenda slowly reveals itself. Even as Congo brags of
his antics, he sports a bizarre form of naiveté in which he fails to
comprehend why his acts haunt him. By allowing Congo to struggle
through this conundrum rather than setting him straight, Oppenheimer
provides a close up of a mania that's too often relegated to
imagination. Struggling to comprehend an objectively evil mentality,
"The Act of Killing" explores the paradox of seemingly normal people
content with their crimes. In one telling scene, the reenactment of a
strangling is interrupted when the gangsters realize it's time for
evening prayers.
At 115 minutes, "The Act of Killing" is a frequently devastating
experience that smothers viewers with a one-sided point of view given
the power to run wild. A large-scale reenactment of mass murder,
replete with crying children and homes ablaze, seems real enough to
make it evident that the gangsters would feel comfortable committing
the same murders all over again. Elsewhere, the killers craft a
freakish music video for "Born Free" that finds an actor in the role of
the victim and thanking the men for "sending me to heaven." These
darkly comic displays allow Congo to finally question the nature of his
acts in the abstract. Just what is he celebrating? Instead of arguing
with Congo, Oppenheimer lets the man get the crazy out of his system in
order to confront harsh truths in the closing minutes. The filmmaker
only occasionally speaks up from behind the camera to remind his
subject that, no matter how unsettled their crimes have left them, the
experience was infinitely worse for their victims.
"The Act of Killing" has been shepherded along by executive producers
Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, an apt pair for this quintessential
look at murder as a primal phenomenon. While Oppenheimer achieves an
unprecedented closeness with people responsible for death, his mission
is not unlike the process behind Herzog's "Death Row" series (where the
director interviews convicted murderers) and Morris' "Mr. Death," which
centers on a retired executioner. More than anything else, however,
Oppenheimer's process calls to mind Claude Lanzmann's Holocaust epic
"Shoah," as both Lanzmann and Oppenheimer eschew archival footage in
favor of letting their subjects actualize past misdeeds in the present.
The reenactments provide a chilling closeness that no grainy footage
could possibly convey.
The case can be made that Oppenheimer lets Congo and the other
participants off too easy. They never receive a direct comeuppance.
However, "The Act of Killing" vilifies these men by implication. It's
possible they might not mind the way they come off for the camera, as
they're all to eager to explain themselves; it's that very eagerness,
however, that confirms their guilt.
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