You won’t see a more important film this year—or possibly this decade—than The Act of Killing. It is a film of discerning complexity that makes us question our understanding of morality and forces us to confront the ramifications of history by presenting a situation where the ostensible bad guys won. What is right and what is wrong if our belief system is not ubiquitous? How can there be truth and reconciliation if the perpetrators won’t be reconciled? The Act of Killing is a haunting and powerful documentary that reveals the banality of evil before our very eyes.
In 1965 following a failed coup in Indonesia, a group called the Pancasila Youth was given the authority to form death squads to round up and murder millions of alleged communists. Members of those death squads, including the film’s main focus named Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, are alive...
In 1965 following a failed coup in Indonesia, a group called the Pancasila Youth was given the authority to form death squads to round up and murder millions of alleged communists. Members of those death squads, including the film’s main focus named Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, are alive...
- 8/23/2013
- by Sean Hutchinson
- LRMonline.com
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Norway, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, 2012
The worst, most oblivious parts of humanity are on display in the strange and striking new documentary The Act of Killing. Hyperbolic or not, it’s hard to imagine many other documentaries quite like this one, in which the director calls upon many of its participants to reenact, as they please, a number of harrowing and gruesome events from 40 years ago. Whatever else can be said about this film, there may be no greater compliment to offer it than saying the prospect of rewatching The Act of Killing is impossible to imagine. This is not a world worth revisiting, because it’s our own.
In 1965, the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military, which has been comfortably in place ever since, even (or especially) after various gangsters were put in charge of putting down anyone who would oppose this dictatorship,...
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Norway, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, 2012
The worst, most oblivious parts of humanity are on display in the strange and striking new documentary The Act of Killing. Hyperbolic or not, it’s hard to imagine many other documentaries quite like this one, in which the director calls upon many of its participants to reenact, as they please, a number of harrowing and gruesome events from 40 years ago. Whatever else can be said about this film, there may be no greater compliment to offer it than saying the prospect of rewatching The Act of Killing is impossible to imagine. This is not a world worth revisiting, because it’s our own.
In 1965, the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military, which has been comfortably in place ever since, even (or especially) after various gangsters were put in charge of putting down anyone who would oppose this dictatorship,...
- 8/2/2013
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
The Act Of Killing Drafthouse Films Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on RottenTomatoes.com Grade: A- Director: Joshua Oppenheimer Screenwriter: Joshua Oppenheimer Cast: Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, the people of Medan, Indonesia Screened at: Park Ave., NYC, 6/25/13 Opens: July 19, 2013 One of the sophomoric questions that teachers ask, well, of students in their second year of media studies, is: “Do movies create violence?” There is no conclusive answer to this, which makes the query one that evokes a plethora of classroom discussions. Let’s turn the question on its head: “Does violence create movies?” Yes, of course, pictures of war and crime in the real world do motivate the production of films to mirror this, but in [ Read More ]
The post The Act of Killing Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Act of Killing Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 6/26/2013
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
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