The Act of Killing (2012)

[CJohn]

Discuss

[Jack Nevada]

I wasn't feeling too bad while watching the movie, but about five minutes after the credits had rolled it hit me. I had to take a long walk to distance myself. A staggering, silencing and mind-melting piece of surrealism that'll leave you at a loss for words and with a need for a shower. 

 

5/5

[JonnyCraig]

It's been almost two weeks since I watched it and it's still on my mind. It is mystifying and anger-inducing, hell, it's even Lynchian, never giving you a moment to compose yourself. I am still at a loss for words pretty much.

 

10/10

[Jake Gittes]

A two-hour gaze into the abyss. For me the one scene that really knocked me out was the talk show scene - taken out of context, it can so easily be taken as a hilarious sequence from some satirical comedy that's out to mock mass murderers. Except there's nothing satirical about it, these are real, ordinary-looking people who actually mean what they say, and once you fully realize that (which is, frankly, not that easy), it's scarier than any horror film. 

[Gopher]

Utter f**king devastation. The most effectively haunting documentary I've ever seen. The last scene is one for the record books in terms of me squirming in my seat. 

[CoolioD1]

Unfortunately I watched the director's cut which is almost three hours and there's a lot of flab in there. Shoulda gone with the other one. It's extremely effective when it wanted to be though.

[Ezen Baklattan]

......fuck. Just nothing else to say. I felt wholly uncomfortable with this, and it's almost shocking to think about how serious and real these people are being. I think I need a hug.

[Plain Old Tele]

Holy fuck.

[DAR]

Has this been released on blu ray yet?

[Plain Old Tele]

I saw it on iTunes.

[DAR]

Thanks

[Plain Old Tele]

I just checked Amazon and it looks like it's out on Bluray now...

[DAR]

It's on Netflix Watch Instant. It's incredibly effective but it was tough to watch. I can't even give this a grade.

[4815162342]

At a loss for words after seeing this

[luna]

both extremely interesting in the historical details and disturbing in how these guys think about their actions. some of the playacting scenes are very impressive, though perhaps the surreality of the thing is oversold. the scene with the old guy gagging at the end is horrifying.

 

8.5/10

[JohnnY]

"though perhaps the surreality of the thing is oversold"

 

Yeah, I felt the same sometimes.

[Plain Old Tele]

Here's a pretty interesting essay by Errol Morris about THE ACT OF KILLING and the greater context of the Suharto coup and the Vietnam War.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/07/the_act_of_killing_essay_how_indonesia_s_mass_killings_could_have_slowed.html

[Jake Gittes]

The sequel, The Look of Silence, will be finished in a few weeks and should be ready for fall festivals:

 

This new film is about a family of survivors who come to find out who killed their son in 1965 in Indonesia, through my work with the first 40 perpetrators I filmed before I met Anwar. The youngest brother in this family was born after the killing, and conceived by his mother as a replacement for his dead brother. So he grew up with this terrible burden, in a family that’s been terrorized into silence. He now has children of his own, and they’re going to school and being brainwashed that all this that happened to their family was their fault, and that they deserved it, and he’s no longer able to abide that silence. He’s determined to break it, and he goes and confronts all of the men involved with killing his brother. And they react with fear, with threats, with anger… The original archive of material of people who killed this family’s son was shot between 2003 and 2005, but the core of the film—confrontations with the perpetrators, the main character responding to the footage of the perpetrators from 2003 to 2005—I shot after I finished editing The Act Of Killing, but before we released it. Because I knew that after we released the film, I wouldn’t be able to safely return to Indonesia.

 

“Making this film, editing this film, is like navigating a minefield of clichés, most of which serve to reassure the viewer that there is, out there in this horrible upside-down moral universe of genocide, a stable, good person with whom to identify… We dishonestly and deceptively present the survivors as uncomplicated, and do a disservice to the understanding of how these things happen, and to the humanity and complexity of the experience of surviving. So to avoid all of these clichés, and invent a new subgenre of human-rights documentary, has been to find a new cinematic language—something more poetic, I think. The film is turning into a kind of poem, I hope, about the silence that’s born out of terror—a poem about the necessity of breaking that silence, but also a poem for the trauma that comes inevitably when you do break that silence.

 

http://thedissolve.com/news/2110-joshua-oppenheimers-the-act-of-killing-sequel-is-a/

[Goffe]

it was boring sometimes, but overall interesting to watch. The wire scenes were tense as hell and I really felt Anwar Congo being tortured by his ghosts of the past. 65/100

[mattmav45]

Wow.

 

In many ways this film is nothing more than a quest for humanity.  This may in fact be the most flat-out surreal film I've watched.  There were times when I'd have to remind myself that these men actually acted out these events and behaviors.  It almost seems impossible when they're talking that they actually did this.  As a defense mechanism of the brain, you are wanting to believe that this is all fiction.  When reality hits, as a viewer I was simply shocked.

 

How scary is it that by multiple accounts, these men don't feel remorse or guilt?  It is hard to imagine these actions coupled with no remorse, and yet that is what is shown here.  No doubt culture and group mentality played a role, but at the end of the day you would hope some semblance of a human mind with sympathy would rear its head.  Thankfully, it does, and that is where the film becomes truly special.

 

You can see the progression of the killers mentality as the film progresses.  In the beginning, they were almost happy and excited to tear their story.  As the film progressed, you could see their walls being broken away.  You could see emotions that had lay hidden for decades come to the forefront.  Simply powerful.

 

It is the moments in which the killers talk and attempt to justify their actions that I took the most from.  Some of my favorite moments were when all you would see is a killer's face for 15-20 seconds.  There is so much hidden emotion and anguish shown in these shots.  One could say there is decade of anguish just now bursting through.

 

This is dark and heavy stuff, and the human brain can only take so much justifying and really flat out lying to one's self.  The contrast between senseless and sadistic killing coupled with humanity is what makes this so great.  Thankfully, in my mind what is shown at the end is that humanity does win out in the end (albeit in a small way).

 

There is a scene here in which one of the killers is playing with some kids amidst some baby ducks.  The killer is downright playful and tender in his interactions with both the kids and ducks.  It is indeed hard for the brain to try to analyze this scene.  As such, I think this is one of the more important scenes in the film.

 

In many ways I feel like I have yet to fully embrace the impact of this watch last night, but this is likely as important of a documentary as I've seen.