With Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing you’d be minded to think that’s it, that’s the Indonesian genocide (1965–66) done, but now he’s returned with a second film that is equally stunning, equally riveting — in its horrifying way — and equally unforgettable. To have one such film in you, but two? I think it is now safe to conclude: there are good documentary makers and there are excellent documentary makers and then there is Joshua Oppenheimer, who is amazing.
The Act of Killing showed Oppenheimer tracking down the ageing, unrepentant, positively gleeful members of the Indonesian civilian militia who, with the approval of the army and government, carried out the wholesale slaughter of a million suspected ‘communists’ after the Suharto coup. Extraordinarily, he persuaded them to memorialise their crimes in the styles of their favourite movies.
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