Unorthodox film's killers all too real

    Updated: 2013-07-21 08:26

    By Larry Rohter(The New York Times)

      Print Mail Large Medium  Small

    Unorthodox film's killers all too real

    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 demonstrates how he strangled hundreds of people with wire. It was quicker and less messy than beating them to death, he explains before breaking into a dance routine, performing the cha cha cha for the camera.

    "The Act of Killing," which has played in numerous festivals in the last year, is crammed with such unsettlingly bizarre moments. Killers joke and brag about their deeds, which earns them applause on an Indonesian TV talk show, praise from the government in power today and condemnation from the human rights groups that want to see them brought to justice.

    But Mr. Oppenheimer's film, which counts Werner Herzog and Errol Morris as its executive producers and was made by a largely Indonesian crew, is also stirring controversy because of its unorthodox form. Re-enactments are always a source of disagreement in the documentary world, but Mr. Oppenheimer has taken that longstanding debate to a new level by encouraging the perpetrators of human rights abuses to restage their crimes, on film and for a global audience.

    "Here are human beings, like us, boasting about atrocities that should be unimaginable," Mr. Oppenheimer, 38, said. "And the question is: Why are they doing this? For whom are they doing this? What does it mean to them? How do they want to be seen? How do they see themselves? And this method was a way of answering those questions."

    The events addressed are little known in the West: the slaughter of as many as a million people in Indonesia following the military's seizure of power there in 1965. The victims were labeled Communists but included labor leaders, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals, with paramilitary groups carrying out the killings at the behest of the Indonesian Army and with the support of the United States and its allies, who worried that Indonesia, like Vietnam, would fall into Communist hands.

    Mr. Oppenheimer focuses on Medan, a large city in northern Sumatra. There a group of so-called "movie gangsters" did much of the killing, inspired in part by the films they loved.

    Mr. Congo tells of seeing an Elvis Presley movie, then skipping across the street, "still in the mood of the film," to the roof of the building where he would strangle his victims. "It was like we were killing happily."

    Mr. Oppenheimer said the decision to stage the re-enactments emerged after his interviews with some 40 death squad members. They had a natural theatricality, he said, which led him to offer to film their re-enactments of their deeds. The killers did not get a salary but were paid a "modest per diem," he said.

    "Within minutes of meeting me, they would tell me horrible stories, often boastfully, and would say, 'How about if we go to the place where I killed people, and I will show you how I did it?'" he recalled. "And then they would often lament afterwards, 'Oh I should have brought a machete along to use as a prop,' or 'I should have brought friends along who could play victims, it would have been more cool that way.'"

    The death squad members molded their performances to fit their favorite film genres. One scene was staged as a western, with Mr. Congo and his comically portly sidekick wearing cowboy hats, while others were done as film noir or horror.

    "You watch this, and you know that in a way, it's real," said Mr. Herzog. "And yet you cannot believe that reality can take forms as crazy and weird as that."

    In Berlin, one audience member suggested that what Mr. Oppenheimer had done was "like having SS officers re-enact the Holocaust," to which he said he replied that "it isn't, because the Nazis are no longer in power," whereas the Indonesian death squad members still serve and enjoy the protection of the state.

    Some question whether the film is a documentary. Mr. Oppenheimer offers a nuanced view. He distinguishes between the observational style of the film's first half and what comes after it pivots to the re-enactments.

    "I think it almost stops being a documentary altogether," he said. "It becomes a kind of hallucinatory aria, a kind of fever dream." At that point, he added, the film "transcends documentary."

    The New York Times

     Unorthodox film's killers all too real

    In "The Act of Killing," re-enactments of murders committed in 1965 were set in the killers' favorite film genres. Drafthouse Films

    (China Daily 07/21/2013 page12)

    无套中出丰满人妻无码| 波多野结衣中文字幕在线| 久久ZYZ资源站无码中文动漫| 中国无码人妻丰满熟妇啪啪软件| 亚洲AV无码资源在线观看| 中文无码久久精品| 日韩免费在线中文字幕| 中文字幕有码无码AV| 中文字幕日韩精品有码视频| 国产精品无码v在线观看| 亚洲V无码一区二区三区四区观看| 久久亚洲春色中文字幕久久久| 好硬~好爽~别进去~动态图, 69式真人无码视频免 | 中文无码精品一区二区三区| 精品无人区无码乱码毛片国产| 亚洲AV无码久久精品色欲| 中文字幕乱人伦| 最近免费视频中文字幕大全| 中文字幕人妻无码一夲道| 人妻丰满?V无码久久不卡| 国产成人精品无码片区在线观看 | 无码日韩精品一区二区免费| 毛片免费全部播放无码| 亚洲欧美在线一区中文字幕| 暖暖免费在线中文日本| 无码内射中文字幕岛国片| 久久人妻AV中文字幕| 中文 在线 日韩 亚洲 欧美| 日韩成人无码影院| 无码精品久久一区二区三区| 久久久久久国产精品无码下载| 国产成人AV片无码免费| yy111111少妇影院里无码| 精品久久无码中文字幕| 国产成年无码久久久久毛片| 播放亚洲男人永久无码天堂 | 无码任你躁久久久久久老妇| 日韩经典精品无码一区| 中文国产成人精品久久亚洲精品AⅤ无码精品 | 亚洲中文字幕无码一去台湾| 中文字幕无码不卡在线|