REVIEW: The Look of Silence (2015)

Considered one of the best films of the year in 2012/3, The Act of Killing was a disturbing documentary about the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide of 1965 who still live in impunity, considered heroes for their slaughter. Joshua Oppenheimer’s new film The Look of Silence has often been considered as a film that addresses the criticisms that The Act of Killing encountered, though the two films were really made concurrently. While the earlier film was questioned for its lack of context and its willingness to allow the perpetrators to speak in place of their victims – even going so far as to almost complicit with their crimes – The Look of Silence offers a more confrontational approach to the killers and places the victims in the centre of events.

The film follows Adi, an ophthalmologist, whose own brother Ramli was murdered before Adi was born. After watching some footage shot by Oppenheimer of two killers bragging shamelessly about their crimes in scenes similar to those in The Act of Killing, Adi and Oppenheimer embark on a series of confrontations with some of the killers, using his experience as an ophthalmologist as a cover.

The Look of Silence is a tough watch, but it is also easier to like, freed as it is of the moral complicity of The Act of Killing by focussing on the pain of the victims and by confronting the killers. In each interviews, Adi casually asks the killers about what they did and what they think about it, allowing them to boast and confess their crimes, before revealing his identity and the details of his brother’s death. Interviewees includes the heads of local families, leaders of death squads and even M.Y. Basrun, speaker of the legislature. Each, when told the truth about Adi and his motives, offer similar, depressingly human, rationalisations for their crimes, feeble threats and panicked denials. Oppenheimer’s camera lingers on the faces, both of Adi and his interviewees, often concentrating on their faces when there are no words left to say – the titular look of silence.

Beyond the trickery and the sight of the murderer’s finally having to squirm out of the facts of the past (shades of Shoah here), the film is constructive. It displays the silence and fear of the victims. Adi is told by Basrun that the killings will begin again if the victims’ families continue to want justice. Another interviewee suggests that Adi is part of a communist plot and threateningly attempts to find out what his name is and where he is from. It also shows that, despite the frequent calls of the killers and some of the victims to forget the past, Indonesia will not overcome its problems until these questions are asked and the impunity of the killers is removed. The film ultimately makes the case for truth and reconciliation, but also shows that the victims who remains in Indonesia are still in a very tenuous and dangerous position – a criticism of the here and now in Indonesia and, hence, important and valuable.

More than The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence is about the lies that surround Indonesia’s past. Early in the film, we see archive footage of an American news report about the genocide which, though not hiding the violence and the suffering (how could it?), complacently suggests that the killing was being done with the support of the population, was indeed being carried out by the people themselves, was not being orchestrated by a military dictatorship. We see footage of Goodyear Company’s Sumatran rubber plant, where the workers are all accused ‘communists’ working as slaves at gunpoint – the American reporter is sickeningly casual about this open abuse. Later, we are in a classroom, during a history lesson, hearing a teacher shamelessly indoctrinating his students, including Adi’s son, giving gruesome lessons about communist atrocities and recommending full compliance with the state. Though both scenes are about the past, they are also about the present, and reveal the film’s strategy of talking about the fear, suffering and silence of the modern Indonesian state by revealing the horrors of the past. The film acts as a powerful corrective to the lies of Indonesia and the West today.

Centring on Adi, who confronts the killers with a remarkable bravery and composure, The Look of Silence puts the focus on the victims and, in the meetings between the victim and the killer, on the future. Though Oppenheimer is not particularly interested in authenticity – there are many scenes here that feel staged – he has created a work that confronts the lies about Indonesia’s past and which gives a voice to the victim’s, one expressive not of their wish for revenge but of their wish for the truth, justice and ultimately safety and security. It is a powerful statement and an important, disturbing film about Indonesia and about all of us.

REVIEW: The Act of Killing (2013)

In 1965, a military coup crippled Indonesia. Begun apparently to thwart a communist coup in October, the military, under General Suharto, slaughtered half a million people with the active support of both the USA and the UK. Suharto violently suppressed all opposition and led a corrupt government. Thatcher visited in 1985, later writing in “The Downing Street Years”, “though there have been serious human rights abuses, particularly in East Timor, this is a society which by most criteria ‘works.’” This was Indonesia’s invasion and occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999, which killed a further one hundred thousand people. Since a society ‘works’ despite human rights abuses, Callaghan, Thatcher and others continued to sell Suharto arms. The murderers in Indonesia live on with impunity and they are still in power – still able to intimidate their neighbours and still honoured on national television for crushing the communists. Essentially, they are mass murderers who won, their crimes ignored (two and a half million killed) and their country running along thanks to the support of the capitalist West.

The Act of Killing follows a number of these murderers, particularly Anwar Congo, a self-proclaimed gangster and sadistic murderer, who looks back on his crimes with pride and nostalgia. They were leaders of their local Pancasila Youth paramilitary death squad. Initially, we see Congo and his old colleagues describe their killings and their love of cinema. These two interests go uncomfortably hand-in-hand when Congo describes going to see an Elvis film and then swaggering across the road to kill more prisoners. The documentary follows them as they attempt to recreate their tortures and killings, turning genocide into spectacle, offering insights into their thoughts and motivations.

The film’s main novelty is the fact that it contains interviews with wholly unrepentant murderers and a lot of the most shocking scenes are both evil and banal. These people make jokes about their murderers (one recounts an incident wherein he walked down a street, stabbing any Chinese person he found and he is sure to finish with a punch line) and are frequently honoured as war heroes and patriots. In a break during filming, one killer boasts of how many women he used to rape during a raid of a village and, in particular, his pursuit of fourteen-year olds to a group of laughing cohorts. However, as the film progresses and the re-enactments, ranging from gangster movie pastiches to musical numbers, continue, the façade cracks and some of the murderers, particularly Congo, begin to express regrets.

This is not to say that the film lacks contemporary insight since many of these ‘gangsters’ – frequently translated as ‘free men’ – are still active. One even stands for election into a corrupt government. We see them travelling through their neighbourhoods, extorting money from local businesses and forcing mostly quiet and distant people, for fear of showing disobedience, into participating in their epic, violent visions. One actor reveals himself to be a child of one of the murdered and yet participates nonetheless. These scenes are disturbing and enraging and they also point to the ongoing lack of justice in Indonesia, but they are also part of where The Act of Killing falters.

The film is very short on context. The text at the opening of the film is brief and not very detailed. It is also unclear whether director Joshua Oppenheimer initiated the project of re-enactments or whether he is merely following a pre-existing phenomenon. As a result, we are given very little insight into Oppenheimer’s dealing with these people and, hence, his own culpability with the evil we see and hear. Congo and his friends are clearly acting for Oppenheimer’s camera but what about the local people and the business owners who are filmed being threatened. Is Oppenheimer’s camera observing or instigating? When we see neighbourhood children (with, very possibly, relatives who are/were victimised by the Pancasila Youth) crying, clearly disturbed by the violent nature of the re-enactments that are being filmed, may our own outrage not justifiably be directed at Oppenheimer for encouraging Congo et al.?

Similarly, there are too many scenes that feel a little too convenient. At the film’s end, Congo, having shown a re-enactment of one of his tortures to his grandchildren, suddenly starts to show real remorse. He says that he now understands how the victims were feeling since he had the same feelings during the filming. Now, and only now does Oppenheimer challenge him – saying that it is incomparable since Congo was being tortured for film and his victims were being tortured for real. Then, we cut back to the rooftop were Congo strangled so many of his victims to re-do a too-light hearted previous demonstration of his methods. Suddenly, Congo seems to be violently, physically suffering from the enormity of his guilt, loudly retching and visibly shaken. This sequencing is unexpectedly moving and offers a harrowing reminder that these mass murderers are not, after all, monsters. However, since Oppenheimer hides the nature of the documentary’s production, these scenes feel manipulated and deeply untrustworthy. Conclusions are too easily drawn and their honesty and ultimate truth is difficult to come by. It is not clear if we are seeing everything and if the editing choices were made in the pursuit of verisimilitude or merely a good story and drama.

The Act of Killing is valuable in demonstrating what Indonesia is today but also the kind of state that the West is prepared to support for their own economic interests. It is valuable for its undeniably real scenes – such as the talk show honouring the murderers broadcast on national Indonesian television and interrupted by frequent applause from the audience for each barbarity mentioned, a clip that really has to be seen to be believed. It is awkward formally and depends on withholding, manipulation and subterfuge much more than is comfortable. Its key message is damaged thanks to its untrustworthy and unsophisticated presentation. However, this message, either explicit or implicit, of full impunity for murderers in Indonesia and of the West’s culpability in mass slaughter, is worth telling again and again.

See also: Into The Abyss: A Tale of Life, A Tale of Death (2012)