One of the most talked about documentaries from 2013 is also one of the most chilling pieces of non-fiction cinema ever. In a medium that prizes manufactured horror as a celebrated genre, The Act of Killing takes real life horrors and from their dramatization shines a light on a genocide, all while indicting and learning about, even perhaps enlightening its perpetrators. That may sound impossibly ambitious, and it’s certainly not the outcome director Joshua Oppenheimer and his team were anticipating when they embarked on this project.
My understanding before seeing the film was that it focused on Indonesian death squad leaders who were personally responsible for carrying out thousands of state-sanctioned murders of alleged communists in the country in the mid-1960s. The movie—at least the version I saw; there have been at least a couple of different cuts released—actually seems to focus primarily on one such former paramilitary leader, Anwar Congo, who openly describes for the cameras his methods of killing and his utter lack of remorse.
That the country at large seems to revere the men responsible for such a massacre is probably the most disturbing element of The Act of Killing. The personal response of Anwar to recounting and reenacting some of his acts from decades ago is some of the most fascinating footage to emerge anywhere this year.
Check out a clip from the film below and please do yourself a favor and give this one a watch as soon as possible.
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