The Act of Killing: A documentary about the 1965 Indonesia

[Leonel]

So I recently watched a documentary called the Act of Killing this weekend. It touched on the events of the 1965 killings in Indonesia but focused on the participants of the killings, who they are and what they're doing today. The motivation of the killings was a lashback against a failed communist coup that prompted Suharto to overthrow the current government and establish his dictatorship. Afterwards and with the governments blessing, street gangs formed to find and 'purge' the communists but they also went after ethnic-Chinese Indonesians. As a result, many people who may not have been communist were killed in the witch hunt.

A Movie’s Killers Are All Too Real
‘The Act of Killing’ and Indonesian Death Squads

By LARRY ROHTER
Published: July 12, 2013

arly in “The Act of Killing,” Joshua Oppenheimer’s startling new documentary about mass murder and impunity in Indonesia, a death squad leader named Anwar Congo, dapper in white pants and a lime-green shirt, demonstrates how he strangled hundreds of people with wire. It was quicker and less messy than beating them to death, he explains matter-of-factly, then breaks into a dance routine, performing the cha cha cha for the camera.

“The Act of Killing,” which opens on Friday, is crammed with unsettlingly bizarre moments like that, blending the horrific and the absurd in a disturbing cocktail. Time after time, the killers joke and brag about their deeds, which earns them applause on an Indonesian TV talk show, praise from officials in the government in power today and condemnation from the human rights groups that want to see them brought to justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/movies/the-act-of-killing-and-indonesian-death-squads.html

Now what prompted me to make an RD thread about it is that it hits very close to home for me. For those who don't know, I was born in Indonesia and my mom and her family were alive during that time. I teared up as the credits rolled and burst into tears on the way home as a lot of my childhood memories in Indonesia suddenly seemed to make a lot of sense for me.

One memory that really stuck out for me was when I was young in the 90's and we were driving around Bandung. I don't remember what happened earlier but I think I did see a Pancasila Youth member clad in orange camo through the window. Immediately after that, my mom told me that my uncle was a political prisoner and that I should never tell anyone. My uncle is a gentle man who who I thought was cool because he'd wear all white suits with white shoes and drive around a Mercedes Benz and he was always smiling. It was hard to think about my uncle being subjected to what I saw in the Act of Killing and really got me curious about what other stuff my mom wouldn't tell me for my sake. She did say that her brother was drowned or electrocuted when she was younger in an accident but now I wonder...

This whole thing has gotten me interested in this whole era in Indonesian history but I don't know how to ask my mom about it. I'm sure she'll say don't worry about it and try to deflect the topic and I don't want to push on potentially painful memories. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions or stories of similar circumstances from anyone who happens to have parents whom went through genocide or terrible wars.

 

[Yoda Power]

I haven't seen it yet, but it's supposedly the best documentary of the year.

 

[H4run]

I watch it, it only say half of the complete truth about it. But it is a very good documentary, and I like how they undress the reality of: Pemuda Pancasila. But this film also absent to explain the reason why this masses of thug start to raise up and butcher the commies, as foreign intervention is also take a part of it. The butcher that happened in Surabaya most of the corpses is thrown just infront of British embassy nevertheless the British embassy at that time confirm they doesn't know if there are any massacre in Surabaya. And also the masses of thug from Java sent to Sumatera by the US ship. But in the documentary you will suspect the masses slaughter without any reason but violent.

Edit: Overall a must watch documentary.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I have not seen it yet, since it's a rival to my friend's film The Square and I have been helping her with her next film... but, off of your OP, Leonel, I shall see it.

There is something very compelling about perpetrators of violence (Errol Morris' Fog of War, about Robery McNamara comes to mind) incriminating themselves in front of the camera.