Some very morbid and surreal qualities are deep at work within
the macabre play-acting of The Act of
Killing. It would be utterly bonkers if it weren’t a documentary.
In 1965, after a failed coup amid a communist uprising, the
Indonesian army began a mass extinction of known communists that went on for
more than a year. Estimates of the dead have ranged from 500,000 to 2.5
million. Director Joshua Oppenheimer apparently went to Indonesia to
learn about the killings, and was shocked to hear the candor and pride in the
killers’ voices. He asked them to recreate their political purge, which they
did with joyous glee. The Act of Killing
is essentially their confession.
The film follows one of the killers, Anwar Congo , who was enlisted right off
the street — where he was selling black-market movie theater tickets — to question, torture and eventually execute suspected communists.
Another killer estimates Congo
murdered 1,000 people or more. In 1965, Congo was known as a terrifyingly ice-cold
killer. He was feared by even his allies. Today he’s a tall, lanky grandfather
with a warm, toothy smile. He looks like a leaner Nelson Mandela. In one of the
first scenes, Congo
describes how he would tie wire to a wall, wrap it around a victim’s neck and
then pull. “This is the best way to kill,” he says, later adding that his white
pants would not have been appropriate for such work. “Dark-colored pants only,”
Congo
says with a smile.
The film features other men, including members of the Pancasila
Youth, a militia movement known for its violent purge of communists. Pancasila
members wear predatory camouflage, like Bengal
tigers. At one point, Pancasila militants are taped walking through a market
extorting Chinese vendors. One merchant seems paralyzed with fear, tears
building in his eyes, as he hands over all his money.
Intercut throughout the picture are scenes written, choreographed
and directed by Congo ,
who instructs his actors to plead for their lives like the communists under his knife did in
1965. They use actors, sets, prosthetic and makeup effects, and stunts to
demonstrate their savagery against the communists. Everyone seems very willing
to play a killer, but no one wants to play the communists — the stigma is still
too powerful, even for play-acting. At one point, Congo volunteers to be mock strangled by his infamous wire. He chokes and sputters, and then sits there contemplatively for a long time. You can see fear in his eyes, and anguish in his face. The movie ends with an emotional breakthrough: Anwar Congo , finally
realizing he’s a monster, dry heaving at the site of his murders. This is not
redemption, though, and the film knows this as it lingers over Congo as he
convulses pathetically.
What's most remarkable is how hateful everyone is: they talk of murder as if it were taking out the trash or tilling a field. One of Congo's fellow killers turns up and he tells everyone to tone down the violence or "people will think we were the cruel ones and not the communists." Someone can be heard saying, hard to tell who with the subtitles, that the communists "were never cruel, only us." Even many of the political elite in Indonesia seem to be in on the madness. We see generals, militia leaders and even the vice president gloating about the violent purge; it's no different than Nazis high-fiving over dead Jews today. At one point one general turns to his female golf caddie and callously asks if she still has that mole on her vagina. Other men discuss raiding villages and finding 14-year-olds to rape. Evil has never been so proudly endorsed in the modern age.
Oppenheimer, with backing from documentary greats Werner Herzog
and Errol Morris, creates a vivid picture of murder, fanaticism and history in The Act of Killing. It is unlike
anything I’ve ever seen. The subjects’ unblinking honesty is terrifying; the
way they’re treated like national treasures, even more so.
