The Act of Killing (2012) ..Indonesian documentary
When Sukarno was overthrown by Suharto following the failed coup of the 30 September Movement in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry in Medan (North Sumatra) were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leaders of the most notorious death squad in North Sumatra, as part of the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966. They also extorted ethnic Chinese, killing those who refused to pay. Anwar personally killed approximately 1000 people, usually by strangling with wire.Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of the right-wing paramilitary organization Pemuda Pancasila that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, and they are happy to boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to genocide. A regime was founded on crimes against humanity, yet has never been held accountable.
Invited by Oppenheimer, Anwar and his friends eagerly re-enact the killings for the cameras, and make dramatic scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. The scenes are produced in the style of their favorite film genres: gangster, western, and musical. Various aspects of Anwar and his friends’ filmmaking process are shown, but as they begin to dramatize Anwar’s own nightmares, the fiction scenes begin to take over the film’s form, leading the film to become increasingly surreal and nightmarish. Oppenheimer has called the result “a documentary of the imagination.”Some of Anwar’s friends realize that the killings were wrong. Others worry about the consequence of the story on their public image. Younger members of Pemuda Pancasila argue that they should boast about the horror of the massacres, because their terrifying and threatening force is the basis of their power today.After Anwar plays a victim, he cannot continue. He says that he feels what his victims have felt. Oppenheimer, from behind the camera, points out that it was much worse for the victims, because Anwar is only acting, whereas they were being killed.
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Before signing on as executive producer, veteran filmmaker and producer Werner Herzog said of The Act of Killing, “I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade… it is unprecedented in the history of cinema.”
In some quarters Oppenheimer has been accused of treating his subjects in bad faith. As far as their goal at the beginning was to glorify mass murder, Oppenheimer responds that could never have been his goal, therefore that side of them may have been betrayed.The main protagonists in the film, Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, have seen the film and neither feels deceived, according to Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer says that upon watching the film Anwar Congo “started to cry… Tearfully, he told me: ‘This is the film I expected. It’s an honest film, a true film.’ He said he was profoundly moved and will always remain loyal to it.”Some critics argue that the film lacks historical context. In reply, Oppenheimer said that “the film is essentially not about what happened in 1965, but rather about a regime in which genocide has, paradoxically, been effaced yet celebrated – in order to keep the survivors terrified, the public brainwashed, and the perpetrators able to live with themselves…. It never pretends to be an exhaustive account of the events of 1965. It seeks to understand the impact of the killing and terror today, on individuals and institutions.”Indonesians in power have been supportive during the film making process but may not like the result. Therefore many local contributors remain anonymous, and Oppenheimer may not be able to make more films in Indonesia any time soon (however, he already has the material of an upcoming documentary about people who are oppressed and/or related to victims of the killings).An Indonesian academic, Soe Tjen Marching, analyzed the film in relation to Hannah Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil.
