A most violent year
Joshua Oppenheimer comes up with a silence-breaking film on the Indonesian genocide of 1965-1966
Joshua Oppenheimer is an Oscar-nominated American film director. PHOTO COURTESY: TONY GENTILE/ REUTERS
In Joshua Oppenheimer’s ground-breaking film The Act of Killing, the documentarian tracks down perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965-1966, in which half a million suspected Communists were brutally murdered. Shockingly, most of the perpetrators were revered figures in their localities and still boastful of the horrible acts they committed all those years ago. For the documentary, nominated for an Oscar last year, Oppenheimer invited these men to re-enact some of the killings in the style of their favourite film genres, such as gangster films or musicals.
The result was stupefying. Werner Herzog, who alongside fellow documentary film-maker Errol Morris served as an executive producer of the film, best describes The Act of Killing as “a masterpiece of film-making, full of depth, surrealism and stunning silences that will outlive the political message”. Oppenheimer has since released a quasi-sequel to The Act of Killing, called The Look of Silence. Already successful at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, The Look of Silence travelled next to the Berlin Film Festival for a special screening. This documentary is just as important as Oppenheimer’s first film, and perhaps just as good. It’s not only about the perpetrators, but also about an eye specialist named Adi, whose brother Ramli was murdered during the killings. Therefore, this time around we get not only one side of the story but the inevitable confrontation with the killers as well. Oppenheimer accompanied Adi while he interviewed the perpetrators, confronting them about their heinous crimes. And just like in The Act of Killing, even here there are hardly any signs of remorse.
It’s unbelievable how Oppenheimer has managed to follow up a monumental masterpiece as The Act of Killing with another equally good film. With these two documentaries, he has helped bring attention to something not many people were actively thinking about a mere four or five years ago. “These two films form a single work whose whole is, I hope, greater than the sum of the parts,” he says, explaining that he doesn’t have a favourite between the two films. While in the first film, Oppenheimer is hardly present, it is in this more intimate setting of The Look of Silence, with Adi as the interviewer, that the perpetrators actively acknowledge “Josh”, the man behind the camera.
“In The Act of Killing, there are crucial scenes where I do intervene,” Oppenheimer says. “I confront Adi Zulkadry of being a war criminal.” He explains that with his first film, there is “a necessary distance, a kind-of staying back, as these surreal, bizarre series of dramatisations unfold before the camera.” With The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer says none of that distance exists. Instead, there is “a closeness, an intimacy, particularly with the family”. He explains, “The perpetrators respond to me because in every single scene, they are feeling betrayed by me.”
They probably felt betrayed because the production of The Act of Killing sounded different to what was happening here as “Josh” let Adi do all the talking. And that riled them up. “We would start with the lowest ranking perpetrator, shoot that confrontation, tell Adi’s mother, wife and children and let them watch it and decide if we should continue. [This is] because we knew the lowest ranking one wouldn’t cause us any danger,” Oppenheimer explains.
The actual production was tense, not because anything bad had necessarily happened, but because of the danger Oppenheimer and Adi were in each day of the shoot. “We had all sorts of precautions. When we were confronting the more powerful perpetrators, the family was always at the airport, packed and ready to go in case anything went wrong,” Oppenheimer explains. “We would have a getaway car, so it would be hard for them to follow us. We’d have Adi there with no ID, so we could get help before they could figure out who Adi was.” Oppenheimer only used a Danish crew on this film, so nobody apart from Adi was exposed to any threat from the killers. “We took these precautions but we were always afraid,” he adds.
To say that the past is in the past and that Indonesia has come to terms with its past isn’t true. In The Look of Silence, there’s one particular scene where Adi’s child goes to school and the teacher praises the killers. In what circumstances are these children growing up? Will there ever be a generation of Indonesians who will completely distance themselves from what happened in their country? “The two films together have catalysed this fundamental transformation in how Indonesia talks about its past,” Oppenheimer feels. “Nearly 53,000 people saw The Look of Silence in its first week and that’s as many people who saw The Act of Killing over four months in the United States. The media and the public talk about the genocide as a genocide, whereas before they either didn’t talk about it at all or referred to it in the terms of the official history, as something to be celebrated.”
Oppenheimer says that the films have spurred a younger generation, who are not complicit with the military regime, to come forward and examine their national past in hopes of reconciling with it. “The Look of Silence has shown us how torn this whole society is by this unresolved wound, how there’s a kind of abyss that cuts across every community, sometimes across every family in Indonesia,” he explains.
What Oppenheimer says about the family is illustrated in the film. Towards the end of The Look of Silence, Adi learns that his uncle was a prison guard, complicit in the killings. “I think that there’s a whole generation that says, ‘We don’t want to be lied to anymore. We don’t want to send our children to school to be lied to’,” Oppenheimer explains. “I think they knew they were lied to before, but it’s very different to be a subject of the naked emperor before the child comes and says the emperor is naked. And to be that same subject afterwards. And I think my films have come to Indonesia like the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes and it’s impossible to ignore it now.”
While the government was unwilling to approve The Act of Killing for release in Indonesia, Oppenheimer made the film available in the country for free on YouTube so millions could watch it. When the film was nominated for an Oscar, a high-ranking spokesman in the Indonesian government finally acknowledged the film’s subject. “He said we know that it was a crime against humanity and we know we need reconciliation, but we don’t need a foreign-made film to push us into this,” Oppenheimer recalls. “It was the first time the government ever acknowledged that the genocide was not heroic and was in fact a crime.” Such statements, as small as they may seem, reflect to Oppenheimer that the government is being forced to acknowledge that what happened was wrong, and, as he puts it, perhaps slowly “change will come.”
A history of killings
In October 1965, the Indonesian government gave free rein to Indonesian soldiers and local militias to kill anyone considered a Communist. Over the next few months, at least 500,000 people were killed (the total may be as high as one million).
Victims included members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, civil society activists and artists. The Indonesian government has since justified the massacres as a necessary defense against the PKI. In October 2012, Djoko Suyanto, the political, legal and security affairs minister, argued that “this country would not be what it is today” had the killings not occurred.
Schayan Riaz is a Germany-based writer who tweets @schayanriaz
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 12th, 2015.
The result was stupefying. Werner Herzog, who alongside fellow documentary film-maker Errol Morris served as an executive producer of the film, best describes The Act of Killing as “a masterpiece of film-making, full of depth, surrealism and stunning silences that will outlive the political message”. Oppenheimer has since released a quasi-sequel to The Act of Killing, called The Look of Silence. Already successful at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, The Look of Silence travelled next to the Berlin Film Festival for a special screening. This documentary is just as important as Oppenheimer’s first film, and perhaps just as good. It’s not only about the perpetrators, but also about an eye specialist named Adi, whose brother Ramli was murdered during the killings. Therefore, this time around we get not only one side of the story but the inevitable confrontation with the killers as well. Oppenheimer accompanied Adi while he interviewed the perpetrators, confronting them about their heinous crimes. And just like in The Act of Killing, even here there are hardly any signs of remorse.
Adi Rukun confronts Amir Siahaan in The Look of Silence.
It’s unbelievable how Oppenheimer has managed to follow up a monumental masterpiece as The Act of Killing with another equally good film. With these two documentaries, he has helped bring attention to something not many people were actively thinking about a mere four or five years ago. “These two films form a single work whose whole is, I hope, greater than the sum of the parts,” he says, explaining that he doesn’t have a favourite between the two films. While in the first film, Oppenheimer is hardly present, it is in this more intimate setting of The Look of Silence, with Adi as the interviewer, that the perpetrators actively acknowledge “Josh”, the man behind the camera.
“In The Act of Killing, there are crucial scenes where I do intervene,” Oppenheimer says. “I confront Adi Zulkadry of being a war criminal.” He explains that with his first film, there is “a necessary distance, a kind-of staying back, as these surreal, bizarre series of dramatisations unfold before the camera.” With The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer says none of that distance exists. Instead, there is “a closeness, an intimacy, particularly with the family”. He explains, “The perpetrators respond to me because in every single scene, they are feeling betrayed by me.”
Joshua Oppenheimer celebrates winning Best Documentary for The Act Of Killing at the British Academy of Film and Arts awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House in London. PHOTO COURTESY: REUTERS
They probably felt betrayed because the production of The Act of Killing sounded different to what was happening here as “Josh” let Adi do all the talking. And that riled them up. “We would start with the lowest ranking perpetrator, shoot that confrontation, tell Adi’s mother, wife and children and let them watch it and decide if we should continue. [This is] because we knew the lowest ranking one wouldn’t cause us any danger,” Oppenheimer explains.
The actual production was tense, not because anything bad had necessarily happened, but because of the danger Oppenheimer and Adi were in each day of the shoot. “We had all sorts of precautions. When we were confronting the more powerful perpetrators, the family was always at the airport, packed and ready to go in case anything went wrong,” Oppenheimer explains. “We would have a getaway car, so it would be hard for them to follow us. We’d have Adi there with no ID, so we could get help before they could figure out who Adi was.” Oppenheimer only used a Danish crew on this film, so nobody apart from Adi was exposed to any threat from the killers. “We took these precautions but we were always afraid,” he adds.
To say that the past is in the past and that Indonesia has come to terms with its past isn’t true. In The Look of Silence, there’s one particular scene where Adi’s child goes to school and the teacher praises the killers. In what circumstances are these children growing up? Will there ever be a generation of Indonesians who will completely distance themselves from what happened in their country? “The two films together have catalysed this fundamental transformation in how Indonesia talks about its past,” Oppenheimer feels. “Nearly 53,000 people saw The Look of Silence in its first week and that’s as many people who saw The Act of Killing over four months in the United States. The media and the public talk about the genocide as a genocide, whereas before they either didn’t talk about it at all or referred to it in the terms of the official history, as something to be celebrated.”
A poster of the film The Look of Silence.
Oppenheimer says that the films have spurred a younger generation, who are not complicit with the military regime, to come forward and examine their national past in hopes of reconciling with it. “The Look of Silence has shown us how torn this whole society is by this unresolved wound, how there’s a kind of abyss that cuts across every community, sometimes across every family in Indonesia,” he explains.
What Oppenheimer says about the family is illustrated in the film. Towards the end of The Look of Silence, Adi learns that his uncle was a prison guard, complicit in the killings. “I think that there’s a whole generation that says, ‘We don’t want to be lied to anymore. We don’t want to send our children to school to be lied to’,” Oppenheimer explains. “I think they knew they were lied to before, but it’s very different to be a subject of the naked emperor before the child comes and says the emperor is naked. And to be that same subject afterwards. And I think my films have come to Indonesia like the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes and it’s impossible to ignore it now.”
While the government was unwilling to approve The Act of Killing for release in Indonesia, Oppenheimer made the film available in the country for free on YouTube so millions could watch it. When the film was nominated for an Oscar, a high-ranking spokesman in the Indonesian government finally acknowledged the film’s subject. “He said we know that it was a crime against humanity and we know we need reconciliation, but we don’t need a foreign-made film to push us into this,” Oppenheimer recalls. “It was the first time the government ever acknowledged that the genocide was not heroic and was in fact a crime.” Such statements, as small as they may seem, reflect to Oppenheimer that the government is being forced to acknowledge that what happened was wrong, and, as he puts it, perhaps slowly “change will come.”
A history of killings
In October 1965, the Indonesian government gave free rein to Indonesian soldiers and local militias to kill anyone considered a Communist. Over the next few months, at least 500,000 people were killed (the total may be as high as one million).
Victims included members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, civil society activists and artists. The Indonesian government has since justified the massacres as a necessary defense against the PKI. In October 2012, Djoko Suyanto, the political, legal and security affairs minister, argued that “this country would not be what it is today” had the killings not occurred.
Schayan Riaz is a Germany-based writer who tweets @schayanriaz
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 12th, 2015.