The Act of Killing

It is one of the scariest films I’ve seen in the last decades”, says Werner Herzog (executive producer along with Errol Morris, among others). In 2002, Oppenheimer decides to go to Indonesia to film the survivors of the anti-comunist massacre of 1965-1966. Never before had their voices been heard publicly. These conversations were held in the shade of the torturers. “Ironically”, the director says, “we found more danger in filming the survivors than the executioners.” Unlike Rwanda, Indonesia has never had commissions of truth and reconciliation. The failed coup resulted in a witch hunt against supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party. Many of them were arrested, tortured and killed without a trial. The film follows Anwar Congo, one of the most dreaded torturers, who stages some of the genocide executions. Protected by the impunity of the government, these men continue to be honored as national heroes. (A. I. S.)