The content available on most streaming services changes regularly, and Hulu is no exception. As such, having a handy guide for what to watch each month can be an invaluable resource. And so, without further ado, we present to you the 60 best movies on Hulu right now.
What can you expect from the Hulu catalog specifically? Well, for one, plenty of 20th Century productions, as well as films made under its specialty label, Searchlight Pictures. Ever since Disney bought Fox (which also gave the Mouse House a controlling share of Hulu), the streaming service has been the exclusive streaming destination for all 20th Century films. Hulu also has a pretty strong, albeit constantly revolving, selection of films from other studios, so there's plenty of good stuff to choose from. Given that HBO Max seems to be going through some turbulent times, Hulu currently seems to be the go-to place for...
What can you expect from the Hulu catalog specifically? Well, for one, plenty of 20th Century productions, as well as films made under its specialty label, Searchlight Pictures. Ever since Disney bought Fox (which also gave the Mouse House a controlling share of Hulu), the streaming service has been the exclusive streaming destination for all 20th Century films. Hulu also has a pretty strong, albeit constantly revolving, selection of films from other studios, so there's plenty of good stuff to choose from. Given that HBO Max seems to be going through some turbulent times, Hulu currently seems to be the go-to place for...
- 8/23/2022
- by Layla Halfhill
- Slash Film
On April 20, 2015, two large oil paintings were stolen from Oslo’s Galleri Nobel. The story didn’t quite rise to the level of international news — the work was only valued at €20,000 — but it was nevertheless a life-fracturing moment for Barbora Kysilkova, a gifted yet struggling young Czech artist who poured her trauma into those photoreal canvases for safekeeping. Both of the culprits were apprehended just a few days later, but Kysilkova only cared that neither of the paintings were found; something invaluable had been taken from her, and returning two random junkies to an Etsy-crafted Norwegian jail wasn’t going to make up the difference. She needed those men to provide another painting. And so Kysilkova, professing “a sort of obligation to continue the story,” walked up to one of the suspects during his trial and asked an unexpected question: “I wonder if I could paint you?”
So begins The...
So begins The...
- 1/24/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday..
This past weekend saw the release of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” the latest in a recent string of impressively strong and commercially successful biographical documentaries (other recent standouts include “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be my Neighbor?”).
This week’s question: What is the best biographical documentary ever made?
Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice, /Film
The best and arguably most important documentaries ever made are complimentary pieces by Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Act of Killing” (2013) and “The Look of Silence (2015). They’re set against the backdrop of Indonesia’s 1965-66 genocide, believed to be sponsored by the C.I.A., but they’re each rooted in the lives of singular subjects and their diametrically opposed journeys.
The cleansing, of an estimated three million ethnic Chinese, changed the face of the nation in terrifying ways,...
This past weekend saw the release of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” the latest in a recent string of impressively strong and commercially successful biographical documentaries (other recent standouts include “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be my Neighbor?”).
This week’s question: What is the best biographical documentary ever made?
Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Freelance for The Village Voice, /Film
The best and arguably most important documentaries ever made are complimentary pieces by Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Act of Killing” (2013) and “The Look of Silence (2015). They’re set against the backdrop of Indonesia’s 1965-66 genocide, believed to be sponsored by the C.I.A., but they’re each rooted in the lives of singular subjects and their diametrically opposed journeys.
The cleansing, of an estimated three million ethnic Chinese, changed the face of the nation in terrifying ways,...
- 7/9/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Remember Anwar Congo, the aging mass-murderer profiled in Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing?” Well, imagine if that guy had been born in the United States instead of Indonesia, and had become a children’s tennis coach instead of the genocidal leader of a North Sumatran death squad, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of who Nick Bollettieri is and what he’s all about.
Of course, that’s not at all to suggest that these men are equally evil — one slaughtered untold numbers of innocent people, the other just ruined Andre Agassi’s chances of winning the 1989 French Open — but rather to say that both of them personify the same type of narcissistic madness. It’s not a rare condition; we all know people like them: people who dehumanize the rest of us as a defense mechanism. People who pretend that the past can’t hurt them.
Of course, that’s not at all to suggest that these men are equally evil — one slaughtered untold numbers of innocent people, the other just ruined Andre Agassi’s chances of winning the 1989 French Open — but rather to say that both of them personify the same type of narcissistic madness. It’s not a rare condition; we all know people like them: people who dehumanize the rest of us as a defense mechanism. People who pretend that the past can’t hurt them.
- 9/9/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
There is no other place where fact and fiction become more indistinguishable from one another than at the cinema. What you see isn’t always what you get: a manufactured image might feel genuine, while an image that feels inauthentic might be the real thing. The finest stories can often be found somewhere in the middle. As Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”
Kate Plays Christine, the latest film from Actress and Fake It So Real director Robert Greene, caught a great deal of attention at Sundance — we gave it the highest grade at the festival — and is now in limited release. It’s a documentary that follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards) as she prepares for the role of Christine Chubbuck, a real-life news reporter who committed suicide via handgun on live television in 1974, and the...
Kate Plays Christine, the latest film from Actress and Fake It So Real director Robert Greene, caught a great deal of attention at Sundance — we gave it the highest grade at the festival — and is now in limited release. It’s a documentary that follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards) as she prepares for the role of Christine Chubbuck, a real-life news reporter who committed suicide via handgun on live television in 1974, and the...
- 8/31/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Closure elicited from justice is a wish survivors of the Indonesian genocide may never be granted. Buried under fearful silence and blatant impunity, the truth has remained a menacing secret for 50 years. Murderers must be regarded as patriotic heroes for their barbaric acts, while the victim’s families are perpetually tortured by the notion of a country ruled by tyrants reveling on the heinous bloodbath they orchestrated.
In Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary “The Act of Killing” these makeshift executioners are exposed not as monsters but as people who lost touch with their humanity and who could only carry on with their lives by glorifying their perverse deeds. Average villagers killing their neighbors with grotesque brutality is a more frightening image than any monstrous apparition. Guilt is transmuted into boasting that pretends to conceal their responsibility with lies. They found solace in the forced silence surrounding the appalling events.
For “The Look of Silence,” the indispensable companion piece to first film, Oppenheimer focused on the survivors, specifically on a brave family that persevered through the immeasurable pain. Retribution is not what they seek, even after the atrocities they have endured and the lurking possibility of more terror hanging over them. The mere acknowledgement of fault by the perpetrators, the Indonesian government, or the international community would open a path for healing a wound that’s been opened for half a century. But it’s easier for the guilty to ban any discussion and imposed their approved explanation painted with false courage, than admit that over 1 million people were savagely murdered.
The subjects in “The Look of Silence” are often quiet and contemplative, but their anguish transcends even when words fail to describe their tumultuous sentiments. Adi, the daring protagonist whose older brother was murdered during the massacres, faces the killers and questions their actions like no one had done before. Watching him witness their shameless pride is a difficult viewing experience that challenges one’s foundations to the core. Yet, to look away would be to enable their fictitious account and would disrespect even further the memory of those ravaged by denial.
Here are 12 essential points from our conversation with the brilliant documentarian behind these groundbreaking works
1. The Director's Cut of "The Act of Killing" is the version Joshua Oppenheimer wants everyone to watch
Werner Herzog said recently in Berlin "This is the only legitimate version of the film. If you haven't seen it you haven't seen 'The Act of Killing'" I agree.
2."The Look of Silence" and the "The Act of Killing" are intrinsically connected
I knew long before I started making "The Act of Killing" that I would make two films, and that they should hopefully be companion pieces to one an another and form a single work whose whole, I hope, is greater than the sum of the parts. The scene that inspired the making of the two films was actually the scene in "The Look of Silence" where the two men take me down to the river taking turns playing victim and perpetrator. I filmed that in January 2004. Eight months into my work filming the perpetrators, a year and a half before I met Anwar Congo and started making "The Act of Killing."
3. The perpetrators' boasting is not an act but a symptom of impunity
For the first eight months in this two-year period of filming every perpetrator I could find - at the insistence of Adi's family - I always filmed them alone because I was afraid that if I brought two together they might warn one another, "You shouldn't talk about this," in case they could get in trouble somehow. But eventually I had to know, "Are they only boasting for me and my camera? Is it something about me or would they also talk this way to each other?" To know that I finally had to take the risk and bring them together. I saw that when they were together they were even worse. They were reading from a shared script. The boasting is a symptom of impunity. I had to let go of whatever comforting hope there might be that these men were just monsters or insane. I realized that this monstrosity and this insanity here is collective. It's political.
4. What he witnessed in Indonesia is what could have happened in the West if the Nazis had won World War II
A thought came to me while I watched those two men coming down the slope helping each other down to the river and holding hands because it's slippery. They were being very tender with each other. In this interlock between these absurd and grotesque demonstrations of killing I thought to myself, "It's as though the Nazis had won World War II and you went to Germany and met the aging SS officers if the rest of the world had celebrated the Holocaust while it took place." I realized in that moment that this surreal scenario, "What if the Nazis had won?," is actually not the exception to the rule but the norm across the Global South. There's been atrocities across the Global South committed throughout the Cold War and since. The perpetrators usually remain in power and people usually remain in fear.
5. From their inception he had a clear idea of what he wanted to tackle in each film
After this I started to wonder, "Perhaps this impunity is the story of our times." I decided I would stop everything I was doing, address the situation and make right. That evening I noted in my diary, "Two films," one of about the boasting of the perpetrators. I came to understand that their boasting, like all boasting, is defensive and is compensating for insecurity and doubt. "The Act of Killing" became a film about the lies, fantasies, and stories the perpetrators tell themselves so they can live with themselves, and the terrible effects of those lies when imposed on the whole society. Then, the second film is about what it's like for survivors to have to continue living in such a regime. What does it do to human beings to have to live afraid for 50 years?
6. Both films are different but precisely complementary
I shot "The Look of Silence" after editing the uncut version "The Act of Killing." The Director's Cur of "The Act of Killing" is this kind of flamboyant fever dream even beyond what you see in the short version of "The Act of Killing." It's not even a documentary, I don't think really. It's non-fiction but a new kind of form. Cutting through the Director's Cut are these long moments of absolute silence where time stops and you just feel the hauntedness of the place where this is unfolding. I felt that "The Look of Silence" should be formally, not just different, but precisely complementary and in that sense form a single work with the Director's Cur of "The Act of Killing."One in which we enter any of those haunted places punctuating the "The Act of Killing's" Director's Cut and feel what would it be like to have to live there and to rebuild a life there.
7. Recognizing that the perpetrators are human beings is the only hopeful response
At first you hear people talking about monstrous things in monstrous ways, and you therefore hope that they are monsters because that has nothing to do with you. It's frightening to get over that thought and think, "Wait, they are not monsters, they are human." Once you get over that thought, and once you recognize that the perpetrators are human beings and that the perpetrators of every act of evil in our history have been human beings like us, you quickly realize that's the only hopeful response because if the perpetrators are monsters what can you do? You can identify them, capture them, somehow neutralize them, and then we become them. We are doing the same thing. You can capture then, lock them up, and kill them, but Primo Levi said very beautifully speaking of the Holocaust, "There may be monsters among us, but they are too few to worry about."
8. Empathy and doubt are key in preventing unthinkable violence from occurring
Once you recognize that all perpetrators are human beings, you also recognize that we ought to be able to find ways of living together where we practice the widest possible empathy and where we encourage people to doubt what authority tells then so it's harder to incite people to betray their individual morality and join groups that are doing things we know are wrong. We ought, therefore, to be able to find ways of living together where this kind of unthinkable violence would one day be truly unimaginable.
9. Justifications in the form of fantasies, lies and stories normalize atrocity
We need to understand how human beings do this to each and how being human, knowing what they've done is wrong, how do they live with themselves. What we quickly discover is that the way they live with themselves is they cling to lies, stories, fantasies to justify what they've done. Those justifications normalize atrocity and prepare the soil for its recurrence because now atrocity is normal, is natural, is appropriate instead of unfathomable. To understand these things we have to be willing to go close to the perpetrators and when we do that, yes, it's frightening.
10. One horrifying reenactment pushed him to overcome the most crippling fear of all
The most surreal and amazing scene is a complex one in the Director's Cut of "The Act of Killing" of how Anwar comes to play the victim, which is missing from the shorter version. It's a scene where he despairingly throws himself into the worst aspect of who he is but as a glamorous film noir character because he knows he can't escape the guilt. He is starting to realize it and he butchers this teddy bear. It starts as a game and he is pretending to be butchering a child. Herman is pretending to be a mother who is trying to save her own life by bribing Anwar with her child. Anwar butchers the child, but it's really a teddy bear. There is all this doubleness and it's absurd, and grotesque, and strange, and silly, and horrible. Filming it I was crying and I didn't realize I was crying. Anwar caught me and said, "Joshua you are crying."I felt my face and I thought, "I'm crying. It's the first time in my life I've cried without realizing it." I had eight months of nightmares and insomnia after that. I don't think that scene will give you nightmares or insomnia when you watch the film, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Coming out of that I felt stronger. I felt stronger because it was a trial by fire. Coming out I found I had overcome the most crippling fear of all, which is the fear of looking.
11. Survivors learn to live in with grace and love despite living in silent fear
The survivors have to find a way of surviving in that kind of fear. When survivors say, "Let the past be past," they say it out of fear and the perpetrators always say it as a threat, which means the past isn't past. It's always right there. It's ungrieved and it's unmourned because it's unrecognized. You cant even talk about it, but it's felt. The survivors are in this kind of awful silence born of fear. It's the silence of nitroglycerin, it's not the silence of still water. Within that, they have to find ways of living also with grace and with love. I think that's what drew me in part to Adi's family, because they've done that.
12. U.S. involvement proves fear is an integral part of the global economy
The film is not about [U.S. involvement]. If you ask, "What is the movie about?" The movie is not about what happened in 1965 or who was responsible. The film is about what it's like for survivors and for this family to live in fear for half a century. It's not about the history of that fear. That's a film worth making and a topic that I hope the film inspires people to explore. On the website for the film there is a whole section about the history and the context of U.S involvement. It's not gone into in depth because, for example, in the lived experience of Ramli's family they didn't know about that. Still, it felt important to me because I want the film to be a mirror in which we see ourselves, not a window into some far off place that's not related to us. I want people to understand that this fear is an integral part of the global economy. We see that very clearly in the U.S. clip because the most important part of what we see is that Goodyear was using salve labor drawn from death camps. Twenty years after German corporations did the same thing at Auschwitz. This was being celebrated on American television as a victory for freedom and democracy. For every viewer of my films who cares about freedom and democracy, and hope that's every single one, that should give them a reason to wonder whether the struggle of the so-called "free world" over the communist world was the real reason we did this. Or rather whether that was a pretext allowing everybody who participated, from the lowest ranking executioner to the highest ranking official in the Pentagon, the CIA and the Indonesian army, to be able to do what they were really doing, which was murderous corporate plunder.
"The Look of Silence" is now playing in Los Angeles at The Nuart and in NYC at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema...
In Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary “The Act of Killing” these makeshift executioners are exposed not as monsters but as people who lost touch with their humanity and who could only carry on with their lives by glorifying their perverse deeds. Average villagers killing their neighbors with grotesque brutality is a more frightening image than any monstrous apparition. Guilt is transmuted into boasting that pretends to conceal their responsibility with lies. They found solace in the forced silence surrounding the appalling events.
For “The Look of Silence,” the indispensable companion piece to first film, Oppenheimer focused on the survivors, specifically on a brave family that persevered through the immeasurable pain. Retribution is not what they seek, even after the atrocities they have endured and the lurking possibility of more terror hanging over them. The mere acknowledgement of fault by the perpetrators, the Indonesian government, or the international community would open a path for healing a wound that’s been opened for half a century. But it’s easier for the guilty to ban any discussion and imposed their approved explanation painted with false courage, than admit that over 1 million people were savagely murdered.
The subjects in “The Look of Silence” are often quiet and contemplative, but their anguish transcends even when words fail to describe their tumultuous sentiments. Adi, the daring protagonist whose older brother was murdered during the massacres, faces the killers and questions their actions like no one had done before. Watching him witness their shameless pride is a difficult viewing experience that challenges one’s foundations to the core. Yet, to look away would be to enable their fictitious account and would disrespect even further the memory of those ravaged by denial.
Here are 12 essential points from our conversation with the brilliant documentarian behind these groundbreaking works
1. The Director's Cut of "The Act of Killing" is the version Joshua Oppenheimer wants everyone to watch
Werner Herzog said recently in Berlin "This is the only legitimate version of the film. If you haven't seen it you haven't seen 'The Act of Killing'" I agree.
2."The Look of Silence" and the "The Act of Killing" are intrinsically connected
I knew long before I started making "The Act of Killing" that I would make two films, and that they should hopefully be companion pieces to one an another and form a single work whose whole, I hope, is greater than the sum of the parts. The scene that inspired the making of the two films was actually the scene in "The Look of Silence" where the two men take me down to the river taking turns playing victim and perpetrator. I filmed that in January 2004. Eight months into my work filming the perpetrators, a year and a half before I met Anwar Congo and started making "The Act of Killing."
3. The perpetrators' boasting is not an act but a symptom of impunity
For the first eight months in this two-year period of filming every perpetrator I could find - at the insistence of Adi's family - I always filmed them alone because I was afraid that if I brought two together they might warn one another, "You shouldn't talk about this," in case they could get in trouble somehow. But eventually I had to know, "Are they only boasting for me and my camera? Is it something about me or would they also talk this way to each other?" To know that I finally had to take the risk and bring them together. I saw that when they were together they were even worse. They were reading from a shared script. The boasting is a symptom of impunity. I had to let go of whatever comforting hope there might be that these men were just monsters or insane. I realized that this monstrosity and this insanity here is collective. It's political.
4. What he witnessed in Indonesia is what could have happened in the West if the Nazis had won World War II
A thought came to me while I watched those two men coming down the slope helping each other down to the river and holding hands because it's slippery. They were being very tender with each other. In this interlock between these absurd and grotesque demonstrations of killing I thought to myself, "It's as though the Nazis had won World War II and you went to Germany and met the aging SS officers if the rest of the world had celebrated the Holocaust while it took place." I realized in that moment that this surreal scenario, "What if the Nazis had won?," is actually not the exception to the rule but the norm across the Global South. There's been atrocities across the Global South committed throughout the Cold War and since. The perpetrators usually remain in power and people usually remain in fear.
5. From their inception he had a clear idea of what he wanted to tackle in each film
After this I started to wonder, "Perhaps this impunity is the story of our times." I decided I would stop everything I was doing, address the situation and make right. That evening I noted in my diary, "Two films," one of about the boasting of the perpetrators. I came to understand that their boasting, like all boasting, is defensive and is compensating for insecurity and doubt. "The Act of Killing" became a film about the lies, fantasies, and stories the perpetrators tell themselves so they can live with themselves, and the terrible effects of those lies when imposed on the whole society. Then, the second film is about what it's like for survivors to have to continue living in such a regime. What does it do to human beings to have to live afraid for 50 years?
6. Both films are different but precisely complementary
I shot "The Look of Silence" after editing the uncut version "The Act of Killing." The Director's Cur of "The Act of Killing" is this kind of flamboyant fever dream even beyond what you see in the short version of "The Act of Killing." It's not even a documentary, I don't think really. It's non-fiction but a new kind of form. Cutting through the Director's Cut are these long moments of absolute silence where time stops and you just feel the hauntedness of the place where this is unfolding. I felt that "The Look of Silence" should be formally, not just different, but precisely complementary and in that sense form a single work with the Director's Cur of "The Act of Killing."One in which we enter any of those haunted places punctuating the "The Act of Killing's" Director's Cut and feel what would it be like to have to live there and to rebuild a life there.
7. Recognizing that the perpetrators are human beings is the only hopeful response
At first you hear people talking about monstrous things in monstrous ways, and you therefore hope that they are monsters because that has nothing to do with you. It's frightening to get over that thought and think, "Wait, they are not monsters, they are human." Once you get over that thought, and once you recognize that the perpetrators are human beings and that the perpetrators of every act of evil in our history have been human beings like us, you quickly realize that's the only hopeful response because if the perpetrators are monsters what can you do? You can identify them, capture them, somehow neutralize them, and then we become them. We are doing the same thing. You can capture then, lock them up, and kill them, but Primo Levi said very beautifully speaking of the Holocaust, "There may be monsters among us, but they are too few to worry about."
8. Empathy and doubt are key in preventing unthinkable violence from occurring
Once you recognize that all perpetrators are human beings, you also recognize that we ought to be able to find ways of living together where we practice the widest possible empathy and where we encourage people to doubt what authority tells then so it's harder to incite people to betray their individual morality and join groups that are doing things we know are wrong. We ought, therefore, to be able to find ways of living together where this kind of unthinkable violence would one day be truly unimaginable.
9. Justifications in the form of fantasies, lies and stories normalize atrocity
We need to understand how human beings do this to each and how being human, knowing what they've done is wrong, how do they live with themselves. What we quickly discover is that the way they live with themselves is they cling to lies, stories, fantasies to justify what they've done. Those justifications normalize atrocity and prepare the soil for its recurrence because now atrocity is normal, is natural, is appropriate instead of unfathomable. To understand these things we have to be willing to go close to the perpetrators and when we do that, yes, it's frightening.
10. One horrifying reenactment pushed him to overcome the most crippling fear of all
The most surreal and amazing scene is a complex one in the Director's Cut of "The Act of Killing" of how Anwar comes to play the victim, which is missing from the shorter version. It's a scene where he despairingly throws himself into the worst aspect of who he is but as a glamorous film noir character because he knows he can't escape the guilt. He is starting to realize it and he butchers this teddy bear. It starts as a game and he is pretending to be butchering a child. Herman is pretending to be a mother who is trying to save her own life by bribing Anwar with her child. Anwar butchers the child, but it's really a teddy bear. There is all this doubleness and it's absurd, and grotesque, and strange, and silly, and horrible. Filming it I was crying and I didn't realize I was crying. Anwar caught me and said, "Joshua you are crying."I felt my face and I thought, "I'm crying. It's the first time in my life I've cried without realizing it." I had eight months of nightmares and insomnia after that. I don't think that scene will give you nightmares or insomnia when you watch the film, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Coming out of that I felt stronger. I felt stronger because it was a trial by fire. Coming out I found I had overcome the most crippling fear of all, which is the fear of looking.
11. Survivors learn to live in with grace and love despite living in silent fear
The survivors have to find a way of surviving in that kind of fear. When survivors say, "Let the past be past," they say it out of fear and the perpetrators always say it as a threat, which means the past isn't past. It's always right there. It's ungrieved and it's unmourned because it's unrecognized. You cant even talk about it, but it's felt. The survivors are in this kind of awful silence born of fear. It's the silence of nitroglycerin, it's not the silence of still water. Within that, they have to find ways of living also with grace and with love. I think that's what drew me in part to Adi's family, because they've done that.
12. U.S. involvement proves fear is an integral part of the global economy
The film is not about [U.S. involvement]. If you ask, "What is the movie about?" The movie is not about what happened in 1965 or who was responsible. The film is about what it's like for survivors and for this family to live in fear for half a century. It's not about the history of that fear. That's a film worth making and a topic that I hope the film inspires people to explore. On the website for the film there is a whole section about the history and the context of U.S involvement. It's not gone into in depth because, for example, in the lived experience of Ramli's family they didn't know about that. Still, it felt important to me because I want the film to be a mirror in which we see ourselves, not a window into some far off place that's not related to us. I want people to understand that this fear is an integral part of the global economy. We see that very clearly in the U.S. clip because the most important part of what we see is that Goodyear was using salve labor drawn from death camps. Twenty years after German corporations did the same thing at Auschwitz. This was being celebrated on American television as a victory for freedom and democracy. For every viewer of my films who cares about freedom and democracy, and hope that's every single one, that should give them a reason to wonder whether the struggle of the so-called "free world" over the communist world was the real reason we did this. Or rather whether that was a pretext allowing everybody who participated, from the lowest ranking executioner to the highest ranking official in the Pentagon, the CIA and the Indonesian army, to be able to do what they were really doing, which was murderous corporate plunder.
"The Look of Silence" is now playing in Los Angeles at The Nuart and in NYC at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema...
- 7/29/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
I had a most appreciated priviledge to screen The Look Of Silence, the follow up to 2012's groundbreaking The Act Of Killing, at this years South By Southwest. I was further pleasured to meet the director of both films, Joshua Oppenheimer, and talk to him about some of the formal aspects and differences between the two. What I gathered was an incredible insight, with the unusual requirement of patience and compassion.
The films document the lives of the perpetrators and survivors of the Indonesian Genocide. The leaders who led the massacre of over a million people, remain in power to this day. Both films seek the humanity beneath it all.
Q. Whenever I’m thinking of a documentary idea, I have this fear that people may find the idea self-interested, or exploitative [for the sake of my own success]. Did you ever deal with that fear [for these films]?
A. Well I think these two films are kind of unique.
The films document the lives of the perpetrators and survivors of the Indonesian Genocide. The leaders who led the massacre of over a million people, remain in power to this day. Both films seek the humanity beneath it all.
Q. Whenever I’m thinking of a documentary idea, I have this fear that people may find the idea self-interested, or exploitative [for the sake of my own success]. Did you ever deal with that fear [for these films]?
A. Well I think these two films are kind of unique.
- 3/20/2015
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Aaron Hunt)
- Cinelinx
I am mostly against the critical valuation of real people in documentaries. I’ve written about this in the past, specifically in response to the reviews of The Imposter that judged subject Frederic Bourdin more than the film itself. I also wondered last fall whether it is okay to highlight the “best” characters of a given year in the form of the Cinema Eye Honors recognition of “The Unforgettables.” On that, I eventually came around to agreeing that memorable documentary characters deserve recognition if not a competitive prize that puts one above the rest (and the Ceh don’t mean for them to be “the best,” just unforgettable). Even calling them characters makes me conflicted at times, but within the film space and narrative, that is what they are. Ranking these characters, though, or calling them “best” or “worst,” isn’t something I feel comfortable doing. However, it is more acceptable to discuss a documentary character positively...
- 5/9/2014
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The Act of Killing was one of the most acclaimed documentaries in recent years, and despite its disturbing subject matter, ended up on many best-of-year lists in 2013 (including ours) and received an Oscar nomination. Now, director Joshua Oppenheimer has revealed that he is currently finishing up work on a sequel to his heralded film, entitled The Look of Silence.
“The Act of Killing was never meant to stand alone,” Oppenheimer says. “It’s always been the first film of a pair.” According to him, The Look of Silence will focus on some of the survivors of the mass killings in Indonesia from the 1960s, who were the original subjects for The Act of Killing – until Oppenheimer met with Anwar Congo and other warlords and the story shifted its focus.
His follow-up will look at an Indonesian family trying to find out who murdered their son in 1965 and will follow the...
“The Act of Killing was never meant to stand alone,” Oppenheimer says. “It’s always been the first film of a pair.” According to him, The Look of Silence will focus on some of the survivors of the mass killings in Indonesia from the 1960s, who were the original subjects for The Act of Killing – until Oppenheimer met with Anwar Congo and other warlords and the story shifted its focus.
His follow-up will look at an Indonesian family trying to find out who murdered their son in 1965 and will follow the...
- 5/1/2014
- by Jordan Adler
- We Got This Covered
My film isn't a snuff movie, it tells one of modern history's most important stories – a genocide where the perpetrators 'won', and continue to live as national heroes
For more than a year I have been presenting my film, The Act of Killing, to audiences around the world. The documentary investigates how 500,000 Indonesians were murdered in the 1950s and 60s, at the hands of a government that is still in power. Often after screenings, viewers approach me to say they had been afraid to see the film, because they'd heard the film is graphically violent – one commentator has even likened it to a snuff movie – or that survivors play themselves in re-enactments. Then they tell me they're glad they came, because neither of those things are true: the film is not violent, and all those appearing in the re-enactments are perpetrators, paramilitary leaders, and their immediate family members – that is,...
For more than a year I have been presenting my film, The Act of Killing, to audiences around the world. The documentary investigates how 500,000 Indonesians were murdered in the 1950s and 60s, at the hands of a government that is still in power. Often after screenings, viewers approach me to say they had been afraid to see the film, because they'd heard the film is graphically violent – one commentator has even likened it to a snuff movie – or that survivors play themselves in re-enactments. Then they tell me they're glad they came, because neither of those things are true: the film is not violent, and all those appearing in the re-enactments are perpetrators, paramilitary leaders, and their immediate family members – that is,...
- 2/26/2014
- by Joshua Oppenheimer
- The Guardian - Film News
Continued from picks 10 to 6….
10. Blood Brother – Steve Hoover
9. Stories We Tell – Sarah Polley
8. Museum Hours – Jem Cohen
7. Her – Spike Jonze
6. Short Term 12 – Destin Cretton
5. The Act of Killing – Joshua Oppenheimer
I don’t know how Oppenheimer managed to find and befriend Anwar Congo and his merry band of genocidal murders, but his mind melting expose of Indonesia’s not-so-distant history of government backed mass murder is as outlandish as the giant fish shaped restaurant that graces the film’s poster. Asking death squad leaders to reenact their self-esteemed atrocities in the style of their favorite American movies seems at first highly inappropriate and possibly dangerous, yet they take up the challenge with glee. In doing, the buried remnants of an empathic human heart begin to surface in the faces of an old man, now a grandfather, whose calloused shell of empty headed pride has finally broken in a profound,...
10. Blood Brother – Steve Hoover
9. Stories We Tell – Sarah Polley
8. Museum Hours – Jem Cohen
7. Her – Spike Jonze
6. Short Term 12 – Destin Cretton
5. The Act of Killing – Joshua Oppenheimer
I don’t know how Oppenheimer managed to find and befriend Anwar Congo and his merry band of genocidal murders, but his mind melting expose of Indonesia’s not-so-distant history of government backed mass murder is as outlandish as the giant fish shaped restaurant that graces the film’s poster. Asking death squad leaders to reenact their self-esteemed atrocities in the style of their favorite American movies seems at first highly inappropriate and possibly dangerous, yet they take up the challenge with glee. In doing, the buried remnants of an empathic human heart begin to surface in the faces of an old man, now a grandfather, whose calloused shell of empty headed pride has finally broken in a profound,...
- 1/9/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week
"The Act of Killing"
What's It About? In director Joshua Oppenheimer's compelling, disturbing documentary, Indonesian gangsters like Anwar Congo recreate their crimes against humanity in the style of the movies they love. Besides the horrific actions they committed in the '60s as part of Indonesia's Pancasila Youth, what's particularly shocking is their crimes are completely open knowledge, and even celebrated in Indonesia.
Why We're In: "The Act of Killing" is short-listed for the Oscars, but it's definitely not for the squeamish.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Throne of Blood (Criterion)"
What's It About? Kurosawa's take on "Macbeth" takes place in feudal Japan, and stars the legendary Toshiro Mifune as an ambitious warrior looking to take over Spider's Web Castle. Isuzu Yamada appears as his Lady Macbeth-style wife.
Why We're In: Like all Criterion releases, this is jam-packed with extras, like two...
"The Act of Killing"
What's It About? In director Joshua Oppenheimer's compelling, disturbing documentary, Indonesian gangsters like Anwar Congo recreate their crimes against humanity in the style of the movies they love. Besides the horrific actions they committed in the '60s as part of Indonesia's Pancasila Youth, what's particularly shocking is their crimes are completely open knowledge, and even celebrated in Indonesia.
Why We're In: "The Act of Killing" is short-listed for the Oscars, but it's definitely not for the squeamish.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Throne of Blood (Criterion)"
What's It About? Kurosawa's take on "Macbeth" takes place in feudal Japan, and stars the legendary Toshiro Mifune as an ambitious warrior looking to take over Spider's Web Castle. Isuzu Yamada appears as his Lady Macbeth-style wife.
Why We're In: Like all Criterion releases, this is jam-packed with extras, like two...
- 1/7/2014
- by Jenni Miller
- Moviefone
On Demand DVD New Releases Jan. 6-12 The Act of Killing Indonesian, subtitled in English. This documentary examines a country where death squad leaders are celebrated, challenging them to reenact their mass-killings in the style of movies they love. Anwar Congo (TV-ma, 2:02) 1/7 Back in the Day Unsatisfied with his career, Jim Owens heads home for his high school reunion. Jim tries to rally his friends for some good old-fashioned partying, but finds himself falling for the girl who got away. Available On Demand before DVD. Michael Rosenbaum, Nick Swardson (R, 1:34) 1/7 Closed Circuit In this international suspense thriller, a … Continue reading →
The post On Demand DVD New Releases Jan. 6-12 appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
The post On Demand DVD New Releases Jan. 6-12 appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
- 1/6/2014
- by Meredith Ennis
- ChannelGuideMag
The National Society of Film Critics named Inside Llewyn Davis the best film of 2013 on Saturday, Reuters reports. Oscar Isaac, who plays the struggling folk singer at the center of the film, won the group's award for best actor, while Joel and Ethan Coen shared the prize for best director. The film also took the prize for best cinematography.
See Where 'Inside Llewyn Davis' Landed on Peter Travers' List of the Best Movies of 2013
Cate Blanchett received the group's nod for best actress for her role in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.
See Where 'Inside Llewyn Davis' Landed on Peter Travers' List of the Best Movies of 2013
Cate Blanchett received the group's nod for best actress for her role in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.
- 1/5/2014
- Rollingstone.com
"The Act of Killing" -- the docu-film which stars a real-life Indonesian warlord reenacting some of his most gruesome killings -- is destroying the country's image, so says sources in the Indonesian embassy who tell TMZ they're all praying the film Bombs this award season.The movie features Anwar Congo -- who's admitted he personally killed roughly 1,000 people during the anti-communist purge in the 1960s. In the flick, Congo walks the filmmakers through the brutal...
- 1/3/2014
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
The Act of Killing is a fascinating piece of cinema that illuminates not only a tragic and disturbing slice of history but also the humanity behind it all. The term is usually used in a positive light, but one of the film’s points is that these aren’t monsters committing such acts of barbarity. They’re people. Director Joshua Oppenheimer‘s film is one of the year’s best, and while he received a helping hand from two big names in the documentary field both Werner Herzog and Errol Morris give him full credit for the accomplishment. Drafthouse Films’ upcoming Blu-ray release includes the theatrical cut with some solid special features, but it also comes with a second Blu featuring the 166-minute director’s cut (an additional 44 minutes). Even better? The longer cut includes a commentary track with Oppenheimer and Herzog. Keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary track for The Act of Killing. The Act of Killing...
- 1/2/2014
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Peter Bradshaw introduces our favourite film of 2013, Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. A documentary on the Indonesian mass-killings of the 1960s, Oppenheimer uses his brutal and brilliant film to invite the cinephile killers of the Suharto era re-enact their crimes for the camera
• The 10 best films of 2013, No 2: The Great Beauty
• More from the 10 best films of 2013
• Show us your favourite films of 2013 using our Movie Mashup interactive
Indonesia's military coup in 1965 ushered in the rule of Major General Suharto, after a purge during which approximately half a million people were murdered as alleged communists by paramilitaries and mobsters. The memory of this mass slaughter is reawakened by documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer in a remarkable and at times unwatchably explicit film, which tracks down the ageing and entirely unrepentant perpetrators and invites them to re-enact the most grisly escapades in the style of their favourite movies. It is...
• The 10 best films of 2013, No 2: The Great Beauty
• More from the 10 best films of 2013
• Show us your favourite films of 2013 using our Movie Mashup interactive
Indonesia's military coup in 1965 ushered in the rule of Major General Suharto, after a purge during which approximately half a million people were murdered as alleged communists by paramilitaries and mobsters. The memory of this mass slaughter is reawakened by documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer in a remarkable and at times unwatchably explicit film, which tracks down the ageing and entirely unrepentant perpetrators and invites them to re-enact the most grisly escapades in the style of their favourite movies. It is...
- 12/20/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It was too good a year for ten. The best year in cinema since 2007 saw such a diverse, fascinating array of art that included amazing works from some of our most well-known directors (Joel & Ethan Coen, Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne, Hayao Miyazaki) alongside its newer voices (Shane Carruth, Destin Cretton, Joshua Oppenheimer, James Ponsoldt).
And the variety of cinema at the top is overwhelming. Foreign films, animation, documentaries, comedies, dramas, epic storytelling, and intimate visions. Personal dramas of relationships like “Short Term 12” and “Nebraska” hold place near the top with technical exercises like “Gravity” and “Upstream Color.” It has been a truly inspirational year, the kind that reminds one why they love cinema in the first place.
And so I couldn’t hold myself to ten. I have filled my standard list out to thirteen. Go ahead. Call me a cheater. Since I’m sure some will ask, I...
And the variety of cinema at the top is overwhelming. Foreign films, animation, documentaries, comedies, dramas, epic storytelling, and intimate visions. Personal dramas of relationships like “Short Term 12” and “Nebraska” hold place near the top with technical exercises like “Gravity” and “Upstream Color.” It has been a truly inspirational year, the kind that reminds one why they love cinema in the first place.
And so I couldn’t hold myself to ten. I have filled my standard list out to thirteen. Go ahead. Call me a cheater. Since I’m sure some will ask, I...
- 12/16/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The frightening part of this documentary on massacres in Indonesia is how little remorse the perpetrators show
If humans are naturally good, why can we do such terrible things to each other and feel so very little remorse? A remarkable film about the massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66 addresses this question head-on.
The Act of Killing is not in the least bit graphic but I found it unendurable, and I only managed an hour and 20 minutes of the director's cut before a sequence in which two elderly gentlemen were re-enacting for the camera the moment they told a man they had just been torturing that they were going to kill him. The amateur playing the victim was in real life the son of a man who had almost certainly been tortured like that before being killed. It is possible that he was acting with his father's killers. In any case,...
If humans are naturally good, why can we do such terrible things to each other and feel so very little remorse? A remarkable film about the massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66 addresses this question head-on.
The Act of Killing is not in the least bit graphic but I found it unendurable, and I only managed an hour and 20 minutes of the director's cut before a sequence in which two elderly gentlemen were re-enacting for the camera the moment they told a man they had just been torturing that they were going to kill him. The amateur playing the victim was in real life the son of a man who had almost certainly been tortured like that before being killed. It is possible that he was acting with his father's killers. In any case,...
- 7/25/2013
- by Andrew Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
The Conjuring is terrific terror, but People's critic says it's The Act of Killing that will really scare you. See This:The ConjuringHere's hoping you're still on good terms with your horror-movie buddy, because you're going to need a hand to hold, shoulder to cry on and/or lap to jump into for The Conjuring.The scariest piece of psychological terror to hit big screens in years, The Conjuring follows the travails of the Perron family, plagued by a demonic presence in their Rhode Island farmhouse. Before Carolyn (Lili Taylor), Roger (Ron Livingston) and their five daughters can unpack, there are...
- 7/19/2013
- by Alynda Wheat, PEOPLE Movie Critic
- PEOPLE.com
Editor’s note: Our review of The Act of Killing originally ran during this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, but we’re re-running it now as the movie opens in limited theatrical release. While everyone has experienced situations in which someone has upset us and we demand an apology, everyone also knows that you cannot truly force someone to apologize. The documentary The Act of Killing presents an almost social experiment exploring what happens when you give those who have done something terrible (in this case, killing thousands) a forum through which to tell their story to see if a new perspective changes their attitude. Back in 1960′s, Indonesia was riddled with “gangsters” and death squad leaders who persecuted and murdered thousands of alleged Communists throughout the region. The fear these unjust murders created is still alive today, with large paramilitary organizations like the Pancasila Youth continuing to grow in staggering numbers. The Act of Killing...
- 7/19/2013
- by Allison Loring
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Joshua Oppenheimer's acclaimed debut feature "The Act of Killing" documents the mass killings of Indonesians following the CIA-funded military overthrow of the Indonesian government in 1965. A band of self-proclaimed gangsters went from selling movie tickets on the black market to suppressing communist sentiment by killing known communists in the mass killings of over one million Indonesians. When Oppenheimer's cameras join the killers, they are, led by their leader Anwar Congo, enacting their cinephile fantasies by acting in their own film in which they recreate the scenes of their murders. Doing their best Robert De Niro, taking cues from Quentin Tarantino, the killers relish in their roles as actors. And in Indonesia, they are just as famous as the men they seek to emulate. The killers, now decades later, are bona fide celebrities whose actions are seen as a source of national pride. Below in an exclusive first person for Indiewire,...
- 7/18/2013
- by Joshua Oppenheimer
- Indiewire
In Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing," a pair of gangsters responsible for murdering an untold number of suspected communists in the years following the 1965 overthrow of the Indonesian government get the chance to recount their experiences. At first showing no visible remorse, the men boast of their achievements, and Oppenheimer capitalizes on their enthusiasm with a twisted gimmick: The men are given numerous opportunities to reenact the murders for Oppenheimer's camera, sometimes emphasizing their brutality and occasionally delivering surreal, flamboyant takes that offer a grotesque spin on classic Hollywood musicals. Playing make believe with murderers, Oppenheimer risks the possibility of empowering them. However, by humanizing psychopathic behavior, "The Act of Killing" is unparalleled in its unsettling perspective on the delusions associated with dictatorial extremes. Oppenheimer's main focus is a lean man named Anwar Congo, one of several former members of the...
- 7/17/2013
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Though director Joshua Oppenheimer filmed in the late '00s, the story of The Act of Killing begins in 1965, with General Suharto's overthrow of Indonesia's first post-colonial government and the subsequent purge of ethnic Chinese, Communists, and intellectuals.
To distance itself from the genocide, the government created by the coup turned to Pemuda Pancasila, a paramilitary group, to carry out the executions. Pancasila's members are widely regarded as "gangsters" in Indonesian society, muscle for the government when it operates outside the reach of the law. The Act of Killing takes as its main subject Anwar Congo, a Pancasila member and death squad leader who claims personal responsibility for more than 1,000 of the 1 million dead.
We spoke with Oppe...
To distance itself from the genocide, the government created by the coup turned to Pemuda Pancasila, a paramilitary group, to carry out the executions. Pancasila's members are widely regarded as "gangsters" in Indonesian society, muscle for the government when it operates outside the reach of the law. The Act of Killing takes as its main subject Anwar Congo, a Pancasila member and death squad leader who claims personal responsibility for more than 1,000 of the 1 million dead.
We spoke with Oppe...
- 7/17/2013
- Village Voice
Joshua Oppenheimer's bloody documentary restaging a wave of mass killings in 1960s Indonesia leaves our critic dumbfounded
This bone-chilling documentary opens with a quote from Voltaire ("All murderers are punished, unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of trumpets"), which gives way to the sight of dancers emerging from a giant fish, a black-clad priest and man in garish electric-blue drag conducting some ecstatic service at the foot of a waterfall, while a directorial voice commands: "Smile! Don't let the cameras catch you looking bad!" The film ends with the sound of someone retching up their tortured soul, an awful, growling, vomitous howl, like an anguished demon being wrenched from a fragile body. In between, we find ourselves looking long into an abyss in which unspeakable horror and utterly mundane madness are thrown together in the existential equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider – fact and fiction...
This bone-chilling documentary opens with a quote from Voltaire ("All murderers are punished, unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of trumpets"), which gives way to the sight of dancers emerging from a giant fish, a black-clad priest and man in garish electric-blue drag conducting some ecstatic service at the foot of a waterfall, while a directorial voice commands: "Smile! Don't let the cameras catch you looking bad!" The film ends with the sound of someone retching up their tortured soul, an awful, growling, vomitous howl, like an anguished demon being wrenched from a fragile body. In between, we find ourselves looking long into an abyss in which unspeakable horror and utterly mundane madness are thrown together in the existential equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider – fact and fiction...
- 6/29/2013
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★★ American filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer's Berlinale hit The Act of Killing (2012) - in cinemas this week from Dogwoof - challenges the very limitations of what a documentary can be. A disturbingly comfortable voyage into the mindset of evil and the psychology of a murderer(s), Oppenheimer's film is like nothing you'll have ever seen before. Focusing on Anwar Congo, a former black market gangster and Indonesian death squad general, Oppenheimer gives this former executioner the stage - allowing him to re-enact the real-life murders he and his cohorts committed in whatever style he so chooses.
Harking back to the Indonesian military coup of 1965, Congo was one of many small-time thugs promoted to these death squads, encouraged to help the army kill over a million reported communists. Despite the graphic crimes of his past, Congo remains unaffected, instead visibly proud of his murderous achievements. At first, the decision to permit Congo...
Harking back to the Indonesian military coup of 1965, Congo was one of many small-time thugs promoted to these death squads, encouraged to help the army kill over a million reported communists. Despite the graphic crimes of his past, Congo remains unaffected, instead visibly proud of his murderous achievements. At first, the decision to permit Congo...
- 6/26/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
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
The Raid was the most recent high profile film to have come out of Indonesia, as a violent action thriller that bears the brutal and elaborate deaths of many of the characters involved. Well now we return to the same nation, except this time the murders that we hear about are completely real, in Joshua Oppenheimer’s incredible documentary The Act of Killing. A film so emotionally charged and painfully absorbing, that this could be six hours long and you’d still be sitting there transfixed.
Oppenheimer heads to South East Asia, where he meets the notorious former gangster Anwar Congo and his collective of loyal accomplices, a group responsible for the murders of countless innocent citizens. In the 1960′s this group of troublemakers were promoted to becoming a legalised death squad, whereby it was their duty to torture and dispense of both the Chinese Indonesians and communist members of society.
Oppenheimer heads to South East Asia, where he meets the notorious former gangster Anwar Congo and his collective of loyal accomplices, a group responsible for the murders of countless innocent citizens. In the 1960′s this group of troublemakers were promoted to becoming a legalised death squad, whereby it was their duty to torture and dispense of both the Chinese Indonesians and communist members of society.
- 6/25/2013
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Joshua Oppenheimer went to Indonesia to make a documentary about the survivors of the 1960s genocide. He ended up filming – and befriending – the killers themselves. The result was The Act of Killing, which critics are hailing one of the best films of the year
Anwar Congo is showing us how he killed people. Then he dances the cha-cha-cha. He used to beat people to death, but there was too much blood ("It smelt awful"). So he asks a pal to sit down, ties a wire to a post, wraps the other end around his neck, and pulls. "This is how to do it!"
Anwar still has nightmares about what he did. He tries to forget with alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy. He dances and sings. His friend smiles. "He's a happy man."
The year following Indonesia's 1965 coup saw the murder of more than a million "communists" (in fact, enemies of the military,...
Anwar Congo is showing us how he killed people. Then he dances the cha-cha-cha. He used to beat people to death, but there was too much blood ("It smelt awful"). So he asks a pal to sit down, ties a wire to a post, wraps the other end around his neck, and pulls. "This is how to do it!"
Anwar still has nightmares about what he did. He tries to forget with alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy. He dances and sings. His friend smiles. "He's a happy man."
The year following Indonesia's 1965 coup saw the murder of more than a million "communists" (in fact, enemies of the military,...
- 6/21/2013
- by Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
It's time for the Los Angeles Film Festival!
Filmforum is the community sponsor for two films at the festival: The Island of St. Mathews by Kevin Jerome Everson, and The Act of Killing, by Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn. Details below:
La Film Festival
June 13-23rd
Mostly at L.A. Live, downtown
http://www.lafilmfest.com/
Now in its nineteenth year, the Los Angeles Film Festival is widely recognized as a world-class cinematic event, showcasing the best in new American and international cinema and providing the movie-loving public with access to some of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals and emerging new talent by bringing them together in the heart of the entertainment capital of the world.
The Festival features unique signature programs including the Filmmaker Retreat, several Outdoor Screenings, intimate Coffee Talks and more. Additionally, the Festival screens short films created by high school students and has a special section devoted to music videos. Passes and Tickets are on sale Now! lafilmfest.com
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The Island of St. Matthews
preceded by Walker
Documentary Competition
(USA, 2013, 70 mins)
North American premiere
Directed By: Kevin Jerome Everson
Producer: Madeleine Molyneaux
Cinematographers: Lindsey 'Lnz' Arturo, Kevin Jerome Everson, Taka Suzuki
Trailer
With a filmmaking style that draws upon fiction, documentary and experimental traditions, filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson deftly explores aspects of the African American experience in critically acclaimed work that is as likely to be seen in an art museum as at a film festival.
For his most recent feature (he has also directed over 70 short films), Everson turns to the community of Westport, Miss., where the nearly annual flooding of the Tombigbee River has touched everyone, including Everson's own family. In 1973, the raging waters threatened to wash away the entire town, along with countless family heirlooms and photo albums. Today, those waters can still trouble, but they also unite the community, bound together by flood barriers and baptisms.
Screening:
Sun, Jun 16th 4:00pm, Regal Cinemas 14
Mon, Jun 17th 7:20pm, Regal Cinemas 13
---The Act of Killing
International Showcase
(Denmark, 2012, 125 mins, Dcp)
In Indonesian with English subtitles
Directed By: Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn
Executive Producers: Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, André Singer, Torstein Grude, Bjarte Mørner Tveit, Joram ten Brink
By turns chilling, surreal and philosophical, this debate-worthy documentary revisits modern Indonesia's brutal origins by inviting those who mass-slaughtered ethnic Chinese, alleged Communists and intellectuals in the 60's to re-enact their long-ago killings in elaborate tableaux evoking classic movie genres. At the center of directors Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn's bold experiment in hellish nostalgia are gangster/paramilitary leader Anwar Congo and his followers, proud nationalists with cinema-inspired visions of themselves, who are nonetheless seen as heroes in their country today. But as set-designed, costumed pretend violence for the cameras sparks further recollections of death squad protocol, the weight of remembered atrocities takes its toll, particularly on dream-haunted Anwar.
Early screenings of this disturbing, one-of-a-kind meditation on history, sanctioned evil and self-mythologizing, so galvanized Werner Herzog and Errol Morris that they became executive producers.
Screening:
Fri, Jun 14th 10:00pm, Regal Cinemas 13
Sun, Jun 16th 7:00pm, Directv Theatre/Regal 9
------------------
Also recommended:
Our Nixon (USA, 2013, 85 mins, HDCam)
Directed By: Penny Lane
Assembled from over 500 reels of Super 8 film shot during the Nixon White House by top aides (and Watergate participants) H.R Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, Penny Lane's documentary provides a unique insider's view of the most infamous presidency in American history.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/Oo
Screening:
Sat, Jun 15th 1:40pm, Regal Cinemas 8
Sun, Jun 16th 9:30pm, Regal Cinemas 13
Shorts Program 3
This group of films takes us into dreamlike and hyper-real worlds in which fear and sadness are offset by the warmth of extraordinary human connections. Including films by Shaz Bennett, Jean-Guillaume Bastien, Ethan Clarke, Kevin Jerome Everson, and more.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/SS
Shorts Program 4
Explorations about the complex challenges of childhood and playful young-adulthood are juxtaposed with stories of tradition and old age--with a monkey movie for good measure! Including films by Rachel Mayeri, Frances Bodomo, Ian Samuels, Tony Donoghue, and more.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/SS
Purgatorio
With striking imagery, director Rodrigo Reyes re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante's purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/Pp
Screening:
Sat, Jun 15th 1:30pm, Regal Cinemas 12, Door Only
Thu, Jun 20th 7:00pm, Regal Cinemas 12
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Filmforum is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Additional support generously provided by American Cinematheque. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.
Coming Soon to Los Angeles Filmforum:
June 23 – Highlights from the Oberhausen Film Festival – Artist Film & Video
June 30 – Flaherty on the Road: Free Land by Minda Martin, Minda Martin in person!
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization screening experimental and avant-garde film and video art, documentaries, and experimental animation. 2013 is our 38th year.
Memberships available, $70 single, $105 dual, or $50 single student
Contact us at lafilmforum[a]yahoo.com.
Find us online at http://lafilmforum.org.
Become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LosAngFilmforum!
Filmforum is the community sponsor for two films at the festival: The Island of St. Mathews by Kevin Jerome Everson, and The Act of Killing, by Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn. Details below:
La Film Festival
June 13-23rd
Mostly at L.A. Live, downtown
http://www.lafilmfest.com/
Now in its nineteenth year, the Los Angeles Film Festival is widely recognized as a world-class cinematic event, showcasing the best in new American and international cinema and providing the movie-loving public with access to some of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers, film industry professionals and emerging new talent by bringing them together in the heart of the entertainment capital of the world.
The Festival features unique signature programs including the Filmmaker Retreat, several Outdoor Screenings, intimate Coffee Talks and more. Additionally, the Festival screens short films created by high school students and has a special section devoted to music videos. Passes and Tickets are on sale Now! lafilmfest.com
--------
The Island of St. Matthews
preceded by Walker
Documentary Competition
(USA, 2013, 70 mins)
North American premiere
Directed By: Kevin Jerome Everson
Producer: Madeleine Molyneaux
Cinematographers: Lindsey 'Lnz' Arturo, Kevin Jerome Everson, Taka Suzuki
Trailer
With a filmmaking style that draws upon fiction, documentary and experimental traditions, filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson deftly explores aspects of the African American experience in critically acclaimed work that is as likely to be seen in an art museum as at a film festival.
For his most recent feature (he has also directed over 70 short films), Everson turns to the community of Westport, Miss., where the nearly annual flooding of the Tombigbee River has touched everyone, including Everson's own family. In 1973, the raging waters threatened to wash away the entire town, along with countless family heirlooms and photo albums. Today, those waters can still trouble, but they also unite the community, bound together by flood barriers and baptisms.
Screening:
Sun, Jun 16th 4:00pm, Regal Cinemas 14
Mon, Jun 17th 7:20pm, Regal Cinemas 13
---The Act of Killing
International Showcase
(Denmark, 2012, 125 mins, Dcp)
In Indonesian with English subtitles
Directed By: Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn
Executive Producers: Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, André Singer, Torstein Grude, Bjarte Mørner Tveit, Joram ten Brink
By turns chilling, surreal and philosophical, this debate-worthy documentary revisits modern Indonesia's brutal origins by inviting those who mass-slaughtered ethnic Chinese, alleged Communists and intellectuals in the 60's to re-enact their long-ago killings in elaborate tableaux evoking classic movie genres. At the center of directors Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn's bold experiment in hellish nostalgia are gangster/paramilitary leader Anwar Congo and his followers, proud nationalists with cinema-inspired visions of themselves, who are nonetheless seen as heroes in their country today. But as set-designed, costumed pretend violence for the cameras sparks further recollections of death squad protocol, the weight of remembered atrocities takes its toll, particularly on dream-haunted Anwar.
Early screenings of this disturbing, one-of-a-kind meditation on history, sanctioned evil and self-mythologizing, so galvanized Werner Herzog and Errol Morris that they became executive producers.
Screening:
Fri, Jun 14th 10:00pm, Regal Cinemas 13
Sun, Jun 16th 7:00pm, Directv Theatre/Regal 9
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Also recommended:
Our Nixon (USA, 2013, 85 mins, HDCam)
Directed By: Penny Lane
Assembled from over 500 reels of Super 8 film shot during the Nixon White House by top aides (and Watergate participants) H.R Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, Penny Lane's documentary provides a unique insider's view of the most infamous presidency in American history.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/Oo
Screening:
Sat, Jun 15th 1:40pm, Regal Cinemas 8
Sun, Jun 16th 9:30pm, Regal Cinemas 13
Shorts Program 3
This group of films takes us into dreamlike and hyper-real worlds in which fear and sadness are offset by the warmth of extraordinary human connections. Including films by Shaz Bennett, Jean-Guillaume Bastien, Ethan Clarke, Kevin Jerome Everson, and more.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/SS
Shorts Program 4
Explorations about the complex challenges of childhood and playful young-adulthood are juxtaposed with stories of tradition and old age--with a monkey movie for good measure! Including films by Rachel Mayeri, Frances Bodomo, Ian Samuels, Tony Donoghue, and more.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/SS
Purgatorio
With striking imagery, director Rodrigo Reyes re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante's purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell.
http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2013/filmguide/Title/Pp
Screening:
Sat, Jun 15th 1:30pm, Regal Cinemas 12, Door Only
Thu, Jun 20th 7:00pm, Regal Cinemas 12
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Filmforum is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Additional support generously provided by American Cinematheque. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.
Coming Soon to Los Angeles Filmforum:
June 23 – Highlights from the Oberhausen Film Festival – Artist Film & Video
June 30 – Flaherty on the Road: Free Land by Minda Martin, Minda Martin in person!
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization screening experimental and avant-garde film and video art, documentaries, and experimental animation. 2013 is our 38th year.
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- 6/13/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Film-makers in Indonesia are harnessing Hollywood's dark arts to ask questions about their own society
Anwar Congo is many things: a gangster, an animal lover, a mass murderer, a grandad. He's also – having begun his criminal career scalping tickets outside a Sumatran cinema – a film buff. So when, in Joshua Oppenheimer's extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing, Congo is asked to stage re-enactments of the executions of Indonesian communists in which he participated in the 1960s, the results are cinematic: pure film noir, in fact. He and his fellow bootboys transform themselves into sharp-suited enforcers, righteous faces glaring from under the awning of a fedora. Their interrogation technique is all Marlowe tough-talk: "So it's great to be a communist, huh?"
Well, maybe their patter has a way to go. But the compromised universe of film noir is how Congo and his Hollywood-inspired associates choose to dress up their part in purges which,...
Anwar Congo is many things: a gangster, an animal lover, a mass murderer, a grandad. He's also – having begun his criminal career scalping tickets outside a Sumatran cinema – a film buff. So when, in Joshua Oppenheimer's extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing, Congo is asked to stage re-enactments of the executions of Indonesian communists in which he participated in the 1960s, the results are cinematic: pure film noir, in fact. He and his fellow bootboys transform themselves into sharp-suited enforcers, righteous faces glaring from under the awning of a fedora. Their interrogation technique is all Marlowe tough-talk: "So it's great to be a communist, huh?"
Well, maybe their patter has a way to go. But the compromised universe of film noir is how Congo and his Hollywood-inspired associates choose to dress up their part in purges which,...
- 6/5/2013
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
The Act of Killing Trailer. Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn‘s The Act of Killing (2012) movie trailer stars Haji Anif, Syamsul Arifin, Sakhyan Asmara, Anwar Congo, and Jusuf Kalla. The Act of Killing‘s plot synopsis: “In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Errol Morris (The Fog Of War) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), [...]
Continue reading: The Act Of Killing (2012) Movie Trailer: A Documentary on True Horror...
Continue reading: The Act Of Killing (2012) Movie Trailer: A Documentary on True Horror...
- 5/24/2013
- by Rollo Tomasi
- Film-Book
Sure, I may label myself as the horror guy, spiraling into insanity with every overly-gory film about dead teenagers and bloodthirsty monsters I watch, but the reality always remains that those indulgences are just films – Hollywood magic if you will. Fantasy. Fiction. There are no real zombies, Freddy Krueger, or killer Good Guy dolls.
With that said, our world is full of actual terrors, true stories of entire groups of people being exterminated with extreme prejudice – these are the real horror stories. The stories of racial cleansing, genocide, and power-hungry killings that saw gallons of *real* innocent blood shed. Women. Children. It didn’t matter. There are true stories of violence and murder much more disturbing than any horror film ever created, and every once and a while a documentary filmmaker challenges audiences by traveling to destinations less-desirable to tell a story so sickeningly traumatizing it seems more like Hollywood...
With that said, our world is full of actual terrors, true stories of entire groups of people being exterminated with extreme prejudice – these are the real horror stories. The stories of racial cleansing, genocide, and power-hungry killings that saw gallons of *real* innocent blood shed. Women. Children. It didn’t matter. There are true stories of violence and murder much more disturbing than any horror film ever created, and every once and a while a documentary filmmaker challenges audiences by traveling to destinations less-desirable to tell a story so sickeningly traumatizing it seems more like Hollywood...
- 5/10/2013
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn
Denmark/Norway/UK, 2013
The documentary film opens with a pertinent and incredibly insightful quote by Voltaire followed by a surreal dance sequence of killers in drag set against a waterfall. After 1965 where the military overtook the Indonesian government, a martial rule was in place and all those deemed “Communists” (farmers, intellectuals, dissenters, ethnic Chinese) were murdered en masse. To carry out these killings, the government enlisted the aid of paramilitary groups such as the Pancasila Youth draped in orange camouflage as well as common gangsters. They carried out heinous war crimes, killing millions over the next decades.
The Act of Killing follows these men after forty years, approaching Anwar Congo, former killer, to create a film reenacting these killings. Along the way, Congo and many others face their heinous crime in a variety of ways from remorse to unadulterated pride and joy.
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn
Denmark/Norway/UK, 2013
The documentary film opens with a pertinent and incredibly insightful quote by Voltaire followed by a surreal dance sequence of killers in drag set against a waterfall. After 1965 where the military overtook the Indonesian government, a martial rule was in place and all those deemed “Communists” (farmers, intellectuals, dissenters, ethnic Chinese) were murdered en masse. To carry out these killings, the government enlisted the aid of paramilitary groups such as the Pancasila Youth draped in orange camouflage as well as common gangsters. They carried out heinous war crimes, killing millions over the next decades.
The Act of Killing follows these men after forty years, approaching Anwar Congo, former killer, to create a film reenacting these killings. Along the way, Congo and many others face their heinous crime in a variety of ways from remorse to unadulterated pride and joy.
- 3/16/2013
- by David Tran
- SoundOnSight
Once considered by many as either high art, propaganda or educational videos, documentary film has developed into a popular and visible form of entertainment, sometimes breaking into the mainstream, and often having a greater effect on society. Every year it seems more and more docs are produced and thus not even our hard working staff can manage to get around to watching them all. But we try our best, and so every year we publish a list of the docs that received high praise from our team. This year, the films appearing range from poetic, semi-expository, strictly observational, participatory, reflexive and even groundbreaking. Here are the 20 best documentaries of 2012, list in alphabetical order, with one special mention. Enjoy!
****
5 Broken Cameras
Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
5 Broken Cameras is a cinematic achievement, a homemade movie and an extraordinary work of political activism. Co-directed by Palestinian Emad Burnat and Israeli Guy Davidi,...
****
5 Broken Cameras
Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
5 Broken Cameras is a cinematic achievement, a homemade movie and an extraordinary work of political activism. Co-directed by Palestinian Emad Burnat and Israeli Guy Davidi,...
- 12/6/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Denmark, 2012
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” As far as truisms go, it’s not a bad one, but it’s not generally a terribly useful one when it comes to film criticism, as Joshua Oppenheimer’s endlessly disturbing The Act of Killing proves. It’s difficult to argue that the film enables its subjects, who happen to be some of the most prolific, remorseless killers on the fact of the planet. But it’s equally difficult to deny that their social and political context has already enabled them to a much greater, and much more destructive, degree, and that the depths the film plunges into would not be possible without indulging the loathsome thugs at its center.
From 1965 to 1966, the Indonesian government killed an estimated half-million people as part of an “anti-Communist purge” in response to a failed coup d...
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Denmark, 2012
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” As far as truisms go, it’s not a bad one, but it’s not generally a terribly useful one when it comes to film criticism, as Joshua Oppenheimer’s endlessly disturbing The Act of Killing proves. It’s difficult to argue that the film enables its subjects, who happen to be some of the most prolific, remorseless killers on the fact of the planet. But it’s equally difficult to deny that their social and political context has already enabled them to a much greater, and much more destructive, degree, and that the depths the film plunges into would not be possible without indulging the loathsome thugs at its center.
From 1965 to 1966, the Indonesian government killed an estimated half-million people as part of an “anti-Communist purge” in response to a failed coup d...
- 9/21/2012
- by Simon Howell
- SoundOnSight
Recruiting Werner Herzog and Errol Morris to become executive producers for your debut feature is quite the feat. Joshua Oppenheimer, who has been creating videos documenting political violence for several years now, has made quite the splash with his new film "The Act of Killing," which has premiered this month at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals. "The Act of Killing" documents the mass killings of Indonesia following the CIA-funded military overthrow of the Indonesian government in 1965. A band of self-proclaimed gangsters went from selling movie tickets on the black market to suppressing communist sentiment by killing known communists in the mass killings of over one million Indonesians. When Oppenheimer's cameras join the killers, they are, led by their leader Anwar Congo, enacting their cinephile fantasies by acting in their own film in which they recreate the scenes of their murders. Doing their best de Niro, taking...
- 9/14/2012
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
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