Review of The Act of Killing (2012) by Steve J — 11 Dec 2014

'The Geneva Conventions may be today's morality, but tomorrow we'll have the Jakarta Conventions and dump the Geneva Conventions.' Chilling, tragic, and illuminating, this documentary explores the long-term effect of the 1965-66 massacres of Indonesian 'Communists' at the hands of the far-right forces of now-president Suharno (with the sanction of several Western governments, including the USA and UK) through a unique medium: director Joshua Oppenheimer has militant leader Anwar Congo and his fellow torturers perform fictional reenactments of their atrocities for his camera.

The end result is a film that might be fatally unpleasant to watch, were it not for the bizarre, circus-like atmosphere that is created. Even these mock-up tortures are difficult to stomach however, and eventually Congo must confront the horror of what he did head-on, after years of haunting nightmares.

It sounds impossibly lurid and sensationalistic, but the subject is treated with surprising sensitivity by the filmmakers, who somehow manage not only to keep the onscreen (simulated) violence from becoming too gratuitous, but also show the perpetrators of the massacre to be not monsters, but human beings.

Not for the sensitive or easily disturbed, but required viewing for political-minded filmgoers.