In 2001, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer started a film project with survivors of a little-known genocide that took place in the 1960s. Working conditions were tense. Often, the military would roll in to intimidate and impound their cameras. It seemed the genocide perpetrators were still in charge, and did not like their version of history to be challenged by the victims’ families.
One thing was remarkable about these acts of intimidation: within minutes of meeting Joshua, the perpetrators were speaking openly, even boasting, about how they had tortured and executed people. One day, one of the survivors who worked with Joshua told him: “Why don’t you film their boasting? That way you can show to the world what happened.”
So he did. Over a period of 7 years, he filmed 40 of them, working his way up the chain of command. Until he came to nr. 41, Anwar Congo, who became the main character of the just released documentary The Act of Killing. On the surface, Anwar is leading a happy life, unrepentant for his deeds. Underneath, he is being plagued by nightmares of the killings he performed. Joshua asked Anwar and his pals to re-enact their killings in any way they wished. They did - in ever more elaborate scenes inspired by their favourite American gangster movies and actors: Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, John Wayne. The result is the most harrowing film I have ever seen, and, arguably, the most important.
One thing was remarkable about these acts of intimidation: within minutes of meeting Joshua, the perpetrators were speaking openly, even boasting, about how they had tortured and executed people. One day, one of the survivors who worked with Joshua told him: “Why don’t you film their boasting? That way you can show to the world what happened.”
So he did. Over a period of 7 years, he filmed 40 of them, working his way up the chain of command. Until he came to nr. 41, Anwar Congo, who became the main character of the just released documentary The Act of Killing. On the surface, Anwar is leading a happy life, unrepentant for his deeds. Underneath, he is being plagued by nightmares of the killings he performed. Joshua asked Anwar and his pals to re-enact their killings in any way they wished. They did - in ever more elaborate scenes inspired by their favourite American gangster movies and actors: Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, John Wayne. The result is the most harrowing film I have ever seen, and, arguably, the most important.
Every act of injustice that brings about suffering hides an imbalance between cause and effect. If the harm committed is large, victims and outsiders try to find big causes to explain it. But perpetrators never experience the same suffering they inflict on their victims, and regardless of the magnitude of the suffering, all one can find are petty justifications: “I was only doing my job”, “we had to do it”, “my conscience told me”, “we didn't know”. Political theorist Hannah Arendt, in her book about Nazi Adolf Eichmann, called this condition the banality of evil.
The Act of Killing really drills the mismatch between the horror of the perpetrators’ crimes and the subsequent pettiness of their justifications into your head. Mostly because Anwar himself increasingly becomes aware of this as he re-enacts his past. Until, finally, the barrier between his horrific deeds and the banality of his justifications breaks. The result is the most powerful scene I have ever seen in a film - which is all I will say about it here.
When stripping away the acts of atrocities, the precise historical context of the genocide, the corrupt regime that created a culture of impunity and celebration of violence, what we are left with is a film about something essentially human. The need for self-justification, the need to feel that we are right in our beliefs about ourselves as good people, and the difficulty of facing the opposite: that we are capable of committing acts that are stupid, wrong, or hurtful.
And here lies some hope in Anwar’s story. In Joshua’s words:
"They're desperately trying to run away from the reality of what they've done. You celebrate mass killing so you don't have to look yourself in the mirror in the morning and see a murderer. You keep your victims oppressed so that they don't challenge your story. When you put the justification – the celebration – under a microscope, you don't necessarily see a lack of remorse, but you start to see an unraveling of the killers' conscience. So what appears to be the symptom of a lack of remorse is in fact the opposite. It's a sign of their humanity."
[Source: Henry Barnes, The Guardian]
Joshua gets a lot of opposition with this message, but it does carry a seed of hope. If Anwar is really the stuff of our darkest dreams - an evil monster - we are in trouble because we’ll never manage to get rid of the monsters like him. If he is a human being who was put in a context where his humanity broke down completely, then what we ought to strive for is a system and a society where the context becomes impossible. One way to do that is to contrast empathy for others with the potentially destructive consequences of self-justification. An arduous task, but The Act of Killing is an important part of that message.
The Act of Killing is out since 28 June 2013 in cinemas across the UK. It will soon appear in the US and other countries around the world. Details of screenings: UK, worldwide.
The Act of Killing really drills the mismatch between the horror of the perpetrators’ crimes and the subsequent pettiness of their justifications into your head. Mostly because Anwar himself increasingly becomes aware of this as he re-enacts his past. Until, finally, the barrier between his horrific deeds and the banality of his justifications breaks. The result is the most powerful scene I have ever seen in a film - which is all I will say about it here.
When stripping away the acts of atrocities, the precise historical context of the genocide, the corrupt regime that created a culture of impunity and celebration of violence, what we are left with is a film about something essentially human. The need for self-justification, the need to feel that we are right in our beliefs about ourselves as good people, and the difficulty of facing the opposite: that we are capable of committing acts that are stupid, wrong, or hurtful.
And here lies some hope in Anwar’s story. In Joshua’s words:
"They're desperately trying to run away from the reality of what they've done. You celebrate mass killing so you don't have to look yourself in the mirror in the morning and see a murderer. You keep your victims oppressed so that they don't challenge your story. When you put the justification – the celebration – under a microscope, you don't necessarily see a lack of remorse, but you start to see an unraveling of the killers' conscience. So what appears to be the symptom of a lack of remorse is in fact the opposite. It's a sign of their humanity."
[Source: Henry Barnes, The Guardian]
Joshua gets a lot of opposition with this message, but it does carry a seed of hope. If Anwar is really the stuff of our darkest dreams - an evil monster - we are in trouble because we’ll never manage to get rid of the monsters like him. If he is a human being who was put in a context where his humanity broke down completely, then what we ought to strive for is a system and a society where the context becomes impossible. One way to do that is to contrast empathy for others with the potentially destructive consequences of self-justification. An arduous task, but The Act of Killing is an important part of that message.
The Act of Killing is out since 28 June 2013 in cinemas across the UK. It will soon appear in the US and other countries around the world. Details of screenings: UK, worldwide.
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