Directed by: Joshua Oppenheimer.
When
most people think of documentary films, they imagine a series of talking heads
interspersed with archival footage. This is what most documentaries over the
years have been, and probably will continue to be for years to come. But more
and more often, documentary filmmakers are stretching the boundaries of the
genre – doing fascinating, interesting things, and coming up with movies as
original as any fiction film. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is one of
these documentaries. There will be people who complain that the movie is too
easy on or sympathetic with its subjects or bring up ethical concerns with how
Oppenheimer goes about getting the scenes he does, but it didn’t bother me. The
Act of Killing is one of the most original, best documentaries of the year.
In
1965-66 the military tried to overthrow the government in Indonesia, failed,
but then used “gangsters” to slaughter over half a million “communists” that
led to a massive change in the political climate of the country. If you were
identified as a communist, you were killed – although many weren’t really
communists – they were union members, critics of the military or native Chinese
citizens. This “purge” was supported by most Westerns governments, but what it was
really genocide. But while most people who take part in this sort of slaughter
are eventually held accountable – or at least viewed as murderers and war
criminals, the gangsters who slaughtered the “communists” have been celebrated
as heroes in their home country ever since. The Act of Killing sets out to
explore this act of mass killing – and mainly the men who did it.
They
are not hard to find. Everyone knows who they are, and in some cases, they live
on the same street as the family of their victims. They also make no attempt to
try and hide their involvement. They openly brag about it to anyone who will
listen – often talking in front of their young grandchildren, and whoever else
happens to be around. Members of the military don’t make it much of a secret
either that they still respect these confessed killers – and the media brags
about the role they played as well. In short, it doesn’t seem like anyone has
any regrets about what happened or all the people they killed.
Oppenheimer
comes up with an interesting way to get the killers to tell him about what
happened – by having them recreate them. Learning that many of the killers
loved American movies, the killers recreate the events in any way they choose
to – and use different films genres – film noir, war film even the most bizarre
musical I have ever seen – to show us what they did. This makes the whole movie
rather surreal, and often very unsettling. The killers themselves play
themselves, as well as their victims, and they use neighborhood children to
play the kids of their victims, screaming and crying. The whole thing is
surreal, disturbing and extremely effective.
Out
of everyone Oppenheimer talks to, Anwar Congo starts to stand out. One of the
gangsters who performed the killings, he starts out with the most swagger of
anyone – bragging about what he did, showing how he came up with a way to make
the killing less bloody. He seems completely at peace with everything he has
done. But gradually, he lets the walls he has built around himself down. He
confesses to nightmares he has had for years about the killings – which of
course, they recreate – and when he has to play the victim in the “film noir”
sequence, he breaks down – he cannot go through with it, because it feels too
real to him. When questioned later by Oppenheimer, he says he now knows how his
victims felt – but Oppenheimer challenges that idea. Congo knew he was going to
be okay – his victims knew they were going to die.
The
movie never loses sight of the fact that Congo is a murderer – by his own
estimate, he killed at least 100 people. But it also never loses sight of the
fact that Congo is a human being, not some kind of mythical monster. This will
trouble some viewers – they want to hate Congo, see him not as a human, but as
evil. But what Congo did was human – many, many people the world over have done
what he has done. I was reminded by a moment in Werner Herzog’s TV documentary
series On Death Row (Herzog, by the way, lends his name, alongside Errol Morris
as an executive producer to this film) when one of the prosecutors says it is
very easy for Herzog to “humanize” the murderer he is interviewing and Herzog
replies “I do not humanize her. She is a human being, period.” And so is Congo.
What he did was vile and evil, but Congo is a complicated human – and he is at
the center of this fascinating documentary that deserves to be seen and
debated, no matter what you make of it.
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