Imagine, in all this darkness, it's like we're living at the end of the world. We look around, there's only darkness. It's so very terrifying.
Anwar Congo
I just watched probably the best movie/documentary I've seen all year thus far. I'd be very surprised if there's anything else this year that tops this one. It was a powerful powerful film which left a strong impact on me both emotionally and intellectually. It was a documentary called The Act of Killing, which focuses on the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966, an anti-communist purge in which more than 500,000 people were killed. In this post, I give some general impressions I had of the movie and compare it's style of documentary-making with another work, the Inside Job which explored the circumstances behind 2008 global financial crisis. In the second part I plan on talking about the politics of The Act of Killing, which I think is a treasure trove for anyone interested in democratisation, genocide, nationalism and political development in the developing world.
A great documentary, in my mind, provides a window into a life or situation outside of one's own. It temporarily suspends your sense of self so you can really glimpse through the eyes of another person. This sort of intimate interaction transcends an intellectual understanding of a situation, its not a sympathetic response but an empathetic one. The connection made to the society and the individual is a supremely personal one. A great documentary helps you empathise with the subject/s to the extent that you think, 'hey, if I had his life and his background would I have done anything different?' It helps you see how contingent our circumstances are and how fluid our sense of identity and self actually is. Remarkably, considering the documentarian's lens focuses almost exclusively on their lives of people who've fully participated in mass murder, it is a humanizing perspective. The sort of character study/societal study explored by Joshua Oppenheimer's the Act of Killing is expertly made. No obvious or heavy-handed agenda is pushed by Oppenheimer, he seems content to let the footage and the men tell their own story. A supremely good decision on his part considering what a story Anwar Congo and his compatriots end up telling.
To me it stood out as being almost supremely honest. It achieves a sort of verisimilitude that seems incapable of being reached by a sort of movie like The Inside Job. While both films had a goal to expose a dark underlying reality and were both very well-made, The Inside Job could only provide an outsider's perspective from which the villains and victims were made to be clear and obvious. In contrast, The Act of Killing, provides an insider's account from the mouth of one of its executioners. Oppenheimer gives them free reign to explore their past and by extension Indonesia's national past, giving a more holistic and intimate understanding of the situation and the human condition. If both documentaries can be seen as exploring the origins and processes behind 'bad behaviour', The Inside Job sees history as a series of empirical facts whereas The Act of Killing is more concerned with history as a continual process of interpretation, a social process of myth-making. We see the former gang-members, now elderly men discuss their legacies and ponder how and whether their past lives ought to be exposed. A few scenes revolve around whether they should open themselves up to the judgement generations of Indonesians who were never asked to make the choices they were made to make, who've grown up in a time of relative peace. One particularly lucid moment was when Adi Zulkadry explains that he feels little guilt because, to him, morality is relative and it is the winners which dictate who is right and wrong. He goes through an almost clichéd series of rationalisations for his past brutality- 'it was wartime', 'he did what he had to', 'what's in the past can't be changed now'. He sharpest argument is when he points out that while its nice to demand justice from him and those who perpetuated mass murder of political opponents and ethnic Chinese, where is the concern for justice in response to the actions of European settlers in the Americas? It does seem far easier to point fingers at a foreign country that we deem is underdeveloped and demand justice than it is to acknowledge and reflect upon our own national mistakes. Society in his mind, and in reality, has been built on unspeakable actions done by men no different from him or even us. Such things are better kept out of sight and out of mind. It does no good for the psyche to dwell on the past.
A great documentary, in my mind, provides a window into a life or situation outside of one's own. It temporarily suspends your sense of self so you can really glimpse through the eyes of another person. This sort of intimate interaction transcends an intellectual understanding of a situation, its not a sympathetic response but an empathetic one. The connection made to the society and the individual is a supremely personal one. A great documentary helps you empathise with the subject/s to the extent that you think, 'hey, if I had his life and his background would I have done anything different?' It helps you see how contingent our circumstances are and how fluid our sense of identity and self actually is. Remarkably, considering the documentarian's lens focuses almost exclusively on their lives of people who've fully participated in mass murder, it is a humanizing perspective. The sort of character study/societal study explored by Joshua Oppenheimer's the Act of Killing is expertly made. No obvious or heavy-handed agenda is pushed by Oppenheimer, he seems content to let the footage and the men tell their own story. A supremely good decision on his part considering what a story Anwar Congo and his compatriots end up telling.
To me it stood out as being almost supremely honest. It achieves a sort of verisimilitude that seems incapable of being reached by a sort of movie like The Inside Job. While both films had a goal to expose a dark underlying reality and were both very well-made, The Inside Job could only provide an outsider's perspective from which the villains and victims were made to be clear and obvious. In contrast, The Act of Killing, provides an insider's account from the mouth of one of its executioners. Oppenheimer gives them free reign to explore their past and by extension Indonesia's national past, giving a more holistic and intimate understanding of the situation and the human condition. If both documentaries can be seen as exploring the origins and processes behind 'bad behaviour', The Inside Job sees history as a series of empirical facts whereas The Act of Killing is more concerned with history as a continual process of interpretation, a social process of myth-making. We see the former gang-members, now elderly men discuss their legacies and ponder how and whether their past lives ought to be exposed. A few scenes revolve around whether they should open themselves up to the judgement generations of Indonesians who were never asked to make the choices they were made to make, who've grown up in a time of relative peace. One particularly lucid moment was when Adi Zulkadry explains that he feels little guilt because, to him, morality is relative and it is the winners which dictate who is right and wrong. He goes through an almost clichéd series of rationalisations for his past brutality- 'it was wartime', 'he did what he had to', 'what's in the past can't be changed now'. He sharpest argument is when he points out that while its nice to demand justice from him and those who perpetuated mass murder of political opponents and ethnic Chinese, where is the concern for justice in response to the actions of European settlers in the Americas? It does seem far easier to point fingers at a foreign country that we deem is underdeveloped and demand justice than it is to acknowledge and reflect upon our own national mistakes. Society in his mind, and in reality, has been built on unspeakable actions done by men no different from him or even us. Such things are better kept out of sight and out of mind. It does no good for the psyche to dwell on the past.
Unfortunately not everyone has Adi's mental discipline, his friend Anwar is gripped by nightmares of the people he killed in his past days as a leader of a death squad. As the clip above shows, he tries to fill his life with dance, music, friends and simple pleasures but he is unable to shake the sense that he has committed something deeply wrong. When the camera lingers on him watching a scene re-enacting an interrogation/execution as the victim near the close of the film , we see him feel the weight of his actions in full. Oppenheimer presents a man who begins to understand the weight of his past (at least in part), who finds that his 'sins' are not so easily pushed aside. We also see a man that is so concerned with the future, who wonders out loud about the afterlife awaiting a man who has so directly brought about suffering to so many.
Anwar Congo: Did the people I tortured feel the way I do here? I can feel what the people I tortured felt. Because here my dignity has been destroyed, and then fear come, right there and then. All the terror suddenly possessed my body. It surrounded me, and possessed me.
Joshua Oppenheimer: Actually, the people you tortured felt far worse, because you knew it's only a film. They knew they were being killed.
Anwar Congo: But I can feel it, Josh. Really, I feel it. Or have I sinned. I did this to so many people, Josh. Is it all coming back to me? I really hope it won't. I don't want it to, Josh.
What makes these ideas so powerful is that they are brought about by self-realisation, only gently prodded by Oppenheimer, This isn't an interviewer trying to give us a cheap 'gotcha' moment. He isn't looking for an easy villain to exploit to satisfy our public desire for retribution. The camera almost acts as a therapist, a venue for Anwar to regain self-awareness and critically reflect on his life.
The most striking part is that there is no redemption to be found despite his best efforts. It is unlikely that those in society who find Anwar to have done far too much 'evil' will be willing to offer him any semblance of forgiveness. He has lived perhaps too comfortably and escaped retribution for too long. Those who agree with his actions cannot acknowledge his crimes without expose their own culpability or admit implicitly that their own fortunes have been built on the backs of slaughter. I am even sceptical of the idea that he should and/or could find a way to forgive himself, the dramatised scene where the 'spirits of those he executed' give him a medal surely reveals that he longs to be relieve his conscience. It is difficult to delineate between a coping mechanism like Adi's complicated set of rationalisations and genuine penance. Even if no such authentic redemption exists, there seems to be value in Anwar's willingness to explore the past, living in times of relative peace and prosperity numbs us to the dark circumstances in our own history. I think a lot about Anwar and Adi's children, specially the scene where Adi is taking his wife and teenage daughter around a modern metropolitan outlet mall. It would be so easy for them to grow up without understanding what blood has been spilt to provide them a chance at an easier life. On a more broader level, what atrocities have been committed by our forefathers to secure our own lives at some point in our collective past? Everyone either immediately or more distantly are linked to both the victims and villains of history. It's an interesting idea and while it probably isn't one of the major themes to be taken away from this film (banality of evil being a more obvious lesson), it was definitely an idea I've been wrestling with since I've watched this documentary. In the next part, I'll try and link it with the broader discussion on national truth and reconciliation commissions.
Anwar Congo: Did the people I tortured feel the way I do here? I can feel what the people I tortured felt. Because here my dignity has been destroyed, and then fear come, right there and then. All the terror suddenly possessed my body. It surrounded me, and possessed me.
Joshua Oppenheimer: Actually, the people you tortured felt far worse, because you knew it's only a film. They knew they were being killed.
Anwar Congo: But I can feel it, Josh. Really, I feel it. Or have I sinned. I did this to so many people, Josh. Is it all coming back to me? I really hope it won't. I don't want it to, Josh.
What makes these ideas so powerful is that they are brought about by self-realisation, only gently prodded by Oppenheimer, This isn't an interviewer trying to give us a cheap 'gotcha' moment. He isn't looking for an easy villain to exploit to satisfy our public desire for retribution. The camera almost acts as a therapist, a venue for Anwar to regain self-awareness and critically reflect on his life.
The most striking part is that there is no redemption to be found despite his best efforts. It is unlikely that those in society who find Anwar to have done far too much 'evil' will be willing to offer him any semblance of forgiveness. He has lived perhaps too comfortably and escaped retribution for too long. Those who agree with his actions cannot acknowledge his crimes without expose their own culpability or admit implicitly that their own fortunes have been built on the backs of slaughter. I am even sceptical of the idea that he should and/or could find a way to forgive himself, the dramatised scene where the 'spirits of those he executed' give him a medal surely reveals that he longs to be relieve his conscience. It is difficult to delineate between a coping mechanism like Adi's complicated set of rationalisations and genuine penance. Even if no such authentic redemption exists, there seems to be value in Anwar's willingness to explore the past, living in times of relative peace and prosperity numbs us to the dark circumstances in our own history. I think a lot about Anwar and Adi's children, specially the scene where Adi is taking his wife and teenage daughter around a modern metropolitan outlet mall. It would be so easy for them to grow up without understanding what blood has been spilt to provide them a chance at an easier life. On a more broader level, what atrocities have been committed by our forefathers to secure our own lives at some point in our collective past? Everyone either immediately or more distantly are linked to both the victims and villains of history. It's an interesting idea and while it probably isn't one of the major themes to be taken away from this film (banality of evil being a more obvious lesson), it was definitely an idea I've been wrestling with since I've watched this documentary. In the next part, I'll try and link it with the broader discussion on national truth and reconciliation commissions.