Review of The Act of Killing (2012) by Viet Phuong N — 24 Jan 2014

A film that basically made me speechless. It is really, really extraordinary to watch such utmost horrendous story through a purely matter-of-fact storytelling without any cinematic effect like voice-over, flashback images, sentimental interviews, or shocking images.

Without its brief wordy introduction, I might have probably mistaken this film for either a mockumentary or a snub film, but this is documentary at its best - an honest film about a forgotten story - a lost part of the Indonesian history that many have tried to erase or forget, which just lays everything down for the audience to observe, to think, and to construct their own opinion and conclusions without any manipulation from the director.

Without any direct criticism to anyone or any organization, this film still makes the audience to wide open their blind eyes to the extraordinarily horrible nature of (some) human, who can admire all aesthetic aspects of cinema while being able to proudly, yes proudly indeed, kill innocent people in a blink of eyes.

The surreal ambiance of the film, with many amazingly surreal settings in Indonesia, with the gradual mixture of reality and dream also deserves the best praise possible. This is one of the strangest yet strongest documentaries I have watched in quite a while.