The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing (Indonesian: Jagal, meaning "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian.[4]

The Act of Killing
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJoshua Oppenheimer
Christine Cynn
Anonymous
Produced bySigne Byrge Sørensen
Anne Köhncke
Michael Uwemedimo
Music byElin Øyen Vister, Karsten Fundal
Cinematography
  • Anonymous
  • Carlos Arango de Montis
  • Lars Skree
Edited by
  • Niels Pagh Andersen
  • Janus Billeskov Jansen
  • Mariko Montpetit
  • Charlotte Munch Bengtsen
  • Ariadna Fatjó-Vilas Mestre
Production
company
  • Final Cut for Real
  • DK
Distributed by
Release date
  • 31 August 2012 (2012-08-31) (Telluride)
  • 1 November 2012 (2012-11-01) (Indonesia)
  • 8 November 2012 (2012-11-08) (Denmark)
  • 28 June 2013 (2013-06-28) (UK)
  • 6 September 2013 (2013-09-06) (Norway)
Running time
122 minutes (theatrical release)[1]
159 minutes (Director's cut)
Country
  • Denmark
  • Norway
  • United Kingdom
LanguageIndonesian
Budget$1 million[2]
Box office$722,714[3]

It is a Danish-British-Norwegian co-production, presented by Final Cut for Real in Denmark and produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen. The executive producers were Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Joram ten Brink, and Andre Singer. It is a Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) project of the University of Westminster.

The Act of Killing won the 2013 European Film Award for Best Documentary, the Asia Pacific Screen Award, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th Academy Awards.[5] It also won best documentary at the 67th BAFTA awards. In accepting the award, Oppenheimer asserted that the United States and the United Kingdom have "collective responsibility" for "participating in and ignoring" the crimes,[6] which was omitted from the video BAFTA posted online.[7] After a screening for US Congress members, Oppenheimer demanded that the US acknowledge its role in the killings.[8]

The Indonesian government had responded negatively to the film. Its presidential spokesman on foreign affairs, Teuku Faizasyah, claimed that the film is misleading with respect to its portrayal of Indonesia.[9]

A companion piece to the film, The Look of Silence, was released in 2014.[10]

The film was ranked 19th on a list of the best documentaries ever made in a 2015 poll by the British Film Institute.[11] In 2016, it was named the 14th greatest film released since 2000 by a poll of critics published by the BBC.[12]

Synopsis

The film focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 in the present day. The genocide led to the killing of almost a million people, ostensibly for belonging to the local communist community. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, the President of Indonesia, 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 leading the most powerful death squad in North Sumatra. They also extorted money from the ethnic Chinese as the price for keeping their lives. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1,000 people.

Today, Anwar is revered by the right wing of a paramilitary organization, Pemuda Pancasila, that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who are openly involved in corruption, election rigging and clearing people from their land for developers.

Invited by Oppenheimer, Anwar recounts his experiences killing for the cameras, and makes scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. The scenes are produced in the style of their favorite films: gangster, Western, and musical. Various aspects of Anwar and his friends' filmmaking process are shown, but as they dig into Anwar's personal experiences, the reenacted scenes begin to take over the narrative. Oppenheimer has called the result "a documentary of the imagination".[13]

Some of Anwar's friends state that the killings were wrong, while others worry about the consequences of the story on their public image.

After Anwar plays a victim, he cannot continue. Oppenheimer, from behind the camera, states that it was worse for the victims because they knew they were going to be killed, whereas Anwar was only acting. Anwar then expresses doubts over whether or not he has sinned, tearfully saying he does not want to think about it. He revisits the rooftop where he claims many of his killings took place, and retches repeatedly while describing how he had killed people during the genocide. The dancers from the film's theatrical poster are seen before the credits begin to roll.

Production

In 2001, while conducting interviews for their 2003 film The Globalisation Tapes, Oppenheimer and Cynn began delving into the Indonesian killings of 1965–66. After moving up the ranks of those involved with the killings, Oppenheimer's interviews led him to meet Anwar Congo in 2005.[14] The film was shot mostly in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, between 2005 and 2011. After seeing an early preview of The Act of Killing, filmmakers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris signed on as executive producers.[15]

Many of the people who worked on the film are not credited by name, instead appearing as "Anonymous," for fear of both legal and extrajudicial retribution for their participation.[16]

Release

Coinciding with the release of the film's director's cut in 2013, a free BitTorrent Bundle of behind the scenes content was uploaded to the internet by the distributor.[17]

Reception

Critical response

The Act of Killing received widespread acclaim from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating with an average rating of 8.76/10 based on 149 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Raw, terrifying, and painfully difficult to watch, The Act of Killing offers a haunting testament to the edifying, confrontational power of documentary cinema."[18] On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 90 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."[19]

Nick Schager of The Village Voice called it a "masterpiece."[20] Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges called the film "an important exploration of the complex psychology of mass murderers" and wrote that "it is not the demonized, easily digestible caricature of a mass murderer that most disturbs us. It is the human being."[21] Award-winning filmmaker Ruhi Hamid said: "It is the most extraordinary film I have ever seen. It actually turns around what we think of as documentaries. ...an extraordinary record of a horrendous part of Indonesian history."[22]

In some quarters Oppenheimer has been accused of treating his subjects in bad faith.[23] 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.[24][25][26][27] In an interview with The Village Voice, Oppenheimer said: "When I was entrusted by this community of survivors to film these justifications, to film these boastings, I was trying to expose and interrogate the nature of impunity. Boasting about killing was the right material to do that with because it is a symptom of impunity."[28]

Australian National University Professor of Asian History and Politics Robert Cribb stated that the film lacks historical context.[29] 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."[30]

Bradley Simpson, historian at the University of Connecticut and director of the Indonesia/East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, states the "brilliant Oscar-nominated film" has prompted vigorous debate among Indonesians about the crimes and the need to hold responsible parties accountable, and suggests that it could have a similar effect in the United States, whose own role in the killings "has never officially been acknowledged, much less accounted for, though some of the relevant documents have been made available to the public."[31]

An Indonesian academic, Soe Tjen Marching, analyzed the film in relation to Hannah Arendt's theory of the banality of evil.[32]

The primary subjects 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." Oppenheimer went on to say that in the call with Congo he also became down on himself saying "There is nothing left for me to do in life but to die". Oppenheimer seeing Congo so moved and almost ashamed for what he had done, said this to him. "You're only 70 years old, Anwar. You might live another 25 years. Whatever good you do in those years is not undermined by the awful things in your past." He felt it may have been cliche, but he felt it was honest and all he could manage to say to Congo.[33] A subsequent interview on Al Jazeera's program 101 East revealed that Anwar had misgivings about the film and the negative reaction to it in Indonesia, which was causing problems for him. He confided these concerns directly to Oppenheimer in an apparent Skype conversation displayed within the program.[34]

In 2015, the film was named as one of the top 50 films of the decade so far by The Guardian.[35]

Top ten lists

The Act of Killing has been named as one of the best films of 2013 by various critics:[36]

The Act of Killing was ranked 19th among all documentaries ever made in a 2015 poll by the British Film Institute,[11] as well as the 14th greatest film since 2000 in a 2016 critics' poll by BBC.[12] It was ranked 16th in The Guardian's Best Films of the 21st Century list.[40]

Awards and nominations
Main article: List of accolades received by The Act of Killing
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References
  1. "THE ACT OF KILLING (15)". Dogwoof Pictures. British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  2. "The Act of Killing (2012) – Box office / business". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  3. "Act of Killing (2013)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  4. Shoard, Catherine (14 September 2012). "The Act of Killing – review". The Guardian.
  5. "Oscars: Main nominations 2014". BBC News. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
  6. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (16 February 2014). Baftas 2014: The Act of Killing wins best documentary. The Guardian. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  7. Macaulay, Scott (17 February 2014). The Act of Killing Wins Documentary BAFTA; Director Oppenheimer’s Speech Edited Online. Filmmaker. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  8. Sabarini, Prodita (16 February 2014). Director calls for US to acknowledge its role in 1965 killings. The Jakarta Post. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  9. Josua Gantan (23 January 2014). "Indonesia Reacts to ‘Act of Killing’ Academy Nomination", The Jakarta Globe. Retrieved 27 May 2014
  10. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (27 August 2014). "Act Of Killing sequel The Look Of Silence will hit theaters in 2015". A.V. Club. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
  11. "The Best Documentaries of All Time". British Film Institute. 21 December 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  12. "The 21st Century's 100 greatest films". BBC. 23 August 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  13. "STATEMENTS | The Act of Killing". theactofkilling.com. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  14. Whittaker, Richard (9 August 2013). "Making a 'Killing': Joshua Oppenheimer on the half-decade he spent filming for The Act of Killing". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  15. Fortune, Drew (30 July 2013). "Joshua Oppenheimer and Werner Herzog on The Act of Killing". The A.V. Club. The Onion, Inc. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  16. O'Brien, Rob (16 January 2014). "The quiet agony of filming 'The Act of Killing'". GlobalPost – via PRI.
  17. The Act of Killing extras Bundle
  18. "The Act Of Killing (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  19. "The Act of Killing". Metacritic. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  20. Schager, Nick (17 July 2013). "The Act of Killing Is a Masterpiece of Murder and the Movies". The Village Voice. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  21. Chris Hedges (23 September 2013). "The Act of Killing". Truthdig. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  22. "Ruhi Hamid recommends", BBC Fresh, 29 August 2013. YouTube.
  23. The Act of Killing DFI Film. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  24. Apriadi Gunawan and Triwik Kurniasari, "Actors may sue director of lauded film on PKI killings", The Jakarta Post, 15 September 2012.]
  25. "FEATURE: An overnight celebrity from 'The Act of Killing'", Yahoo News Malaysia.
  26. Apriadi Gunawan, "1965 victims protest against ‘The Act Of Killing’", The Jakarta Post, 30 September 2012.
  27. "The Act of Killing", 3 DFI-FILM, Fall 2015.
  28. Raillan Brooks, "Joshua Oppenheimer on The Act of Killing", Village Voice, 17 July 2013, p. 1.
  29. Cribb, Robert (April–June 2013). "Review: An act of manipulation?". Inside Indonesia.
  30. Melvin, Jess (April–June 2013). "An interview with Joshua Oppenheimer", Inside Indonesia.
  31. Brad Simpson (28 February 2014). "It’s Our Act of Killing, Too". The Nation. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  32. Marching, Soe Tjen (5 July 2013). "Coming to Grips With the Banality of Mass Murder in Indonesia's Past". Jakarta Globe. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  33. Applebaum, Stephen (13 April 2013) "Indonesia's killing fields revisited in Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary", The Australian.
  34. "Indonesia's Killing Fields". Al Jazeera. 101 East. 21 December 2012. Archived from the original on 14 February 2015.
  35. Bradshaw, Peter (5 January 2015). "Peter Bradshaw's top 50 films of the demi-decade". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  36. Dietz, Jason (8 December 2013). "2013 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  37. Barraclough, Leo (29 November 2013). "Sight & Sound Names 'Act of Killing' Top Film of 2013". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  38. "The 10 best films of 2013, No 1 – The Act of Killing". 20 December 2013.
  39. "The /Filmcast's Top 10 Films of 2013 - /Film". Slashfilm.com. 29 December 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  40. "The 100 best films of the 21st century". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
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