Movies arrive so late here in Japan that they often come burdened with the weight of expectation. In the case of "The Act of Killing," it comes in the wake of near universal critical acclaim, including a No. 1 spot on Sight & Sound magazine's critics poll and an Academy Award nomination for best documentary. Could it be that good, I wondered, this doc about Indonesia's political genocide between 1965-66?
"The Act of Killing" is a remarkable film, and one of the most disturbing I have ever seen. It's impossible to watch this film and not walk out of the cinema with your mind racing at its implications; this film will leave you wondering if there's any hope for mankind. It is a true journey into the heart of darkness.
In 2001-02, director Joshua Oppenheimer visited Indonesia for the first time, to explore issues of globalization and why its workforce remains powerless and exploited. He found that all paths led to the mass killing of suspected leftists in the mid '60s, when roughly a million people were murdered, often by their neighbors. Oppenheimer tried to make a film about the victims, but even today, people are too scared to talk. So he changed tack and began making a film about the killers, who were only too happy to talk, even boast, about what they had done. Oppenheimer gave these elderly men cameras and other resources to make their own cinematic depiction of what they had done, using cinema as a mirror in the hope these men might see their own reflections.