What is the Act of killing movie about?
The Act of Killing. The Act of Killing (Indonesian: Jagal, meaning "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian.
Is'the Act of killing'a good documentary?
The website's consensus reads, "Raw, terrifying, and painfully difficult to watch, The Act of Killing offers a haunting testament to the edifying, confrontational power of documentary cinema." On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 91 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."
What are some of the best documentaries about mass murders?
The Act of Killing (2013) One of the most upsetting and mind-blowing documentaries in recent years, The Act of Killing examines the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 and 1966 through the eyes of two of its most notorious participants in an absolutely inconceivable fashion.
Where was'the Act of killing'filmed?
After moving up the ranks of those involved with the killings, Oppenheimer's interviews led him to meet Anwar Congo in 2005. The film was shot mostly in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, between 2005 and 2011. After seeing an early preview of The Act of Killing, filmmakers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris signed on as executive producers.
What documentary mode is the act of killing?
In Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing (2012), the reflexive mode of documentary is conveyed by means of its documentary voice, such as film style, authorial perspective and speaking subjects.
What is the act of killing movie about?
Filmmakers expose the horrifying mass executions of accused communists in Indonesia and those who are celebrated in their country for perpetrating the crime.The Act of Killing / Film synopsis
How long is the act of killing documentary?
2h 2mThe Act of Killing / Running time
Is the act of killing worth watching?
That said, The Act of Killing is a great story told through subjects that I never ever want to meet in real life. It is an unsettling and powerful experience and is one of the best films of 2013, if not the most important.
Is the act of killing on Netflix?
Rent The Act of Killing (2012) on DVD and Blu-ray - DVD Netflix.
When was the act of killing filmed?
The film was shot mostly in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, between 2005 and 2011. After seeing an early preview of The Act of Killing, filmmakers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris signed on as executive producers.
Who directed the act of killing?
Joshua OppenheimerThe Act of Killing / DirectorIt is a documentary of sorts about the Indonesian death squads who killed millions of 'communists' in the 60s. Director Josh Oppenheimer worked with the squad leaders to make a 'film' about their involvement any way they wanted to make it.
Storyline
A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
Did you know
The co-director, as well as 48 other members of the film crew in 27 different positions, are credited as 'Anonymous' because they still fear revenge from the death-squad killers.
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By what name was The Act of Killing (2012) officially released in India in English?
What is the movie "The Act of Killing" about?
A film by Joshua Oppenheimer. Anwar Congo and his friends have been dancing their way through musical numbers, twisting arms in film noir gangster scenes, and galloping across prairies as yodelling cowboys.
What is the act of killing?
The Act of Killing is a journey into the memories and imaginations of the perpetrators, offering insight into the minds of mass killers. And The Act of Killing is a nightmarish vision of a frighteningly banal culture of impunity in which killers can joke about crimes against humanity on television chat shows, and celebrate moral disaster with ...
Why should paramilitary members boast about the horror of the massacres?
Younger members of the paramilitary movement argue that they should boast about the horror of the massacres, because their terrifying and threatening force is the basis of their power today. As opinions diverge, the atmosphere on set grows tense.
Where did Anwar kill?
Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands.
How many people did Anwar kill?
As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands.
What is the act of killing?
The Act of Killing is a brutal, unrelenting cinematic experience. It can't be reduced to one simple trope or theme and really can't even evoke one overriding, overarching emotion. August 27, 2019 | Rating: A | Full Review…. The Act of Killing is important and unique in illustrating the banality of evil.
What was the outcome of the bloodbath and coup in Indonesia?
The bloodbath and coup in Indonesia were the outcome of the drive by US imperialism to gain control of the natural and strategic resources of the archipelago, known as the "Jewel of Asia.".
Is the Act of Killing 100% original?
The Act of Killing is the only 100% original work of cinema to come out this year.
What is the purpose of pornography in the act of killing?
Pornography is the use of other people’s “reality” for our pleasure. In “The Act of Killing,” our pornographic interest is generated primarily by the gangsters’ ignorance of us watching and disapproving. It’s titillating to stand on the safe side of a one-way mirror…unseen, amazed, judging…as the gangster’s cinema fantasies grow more and more grandiose. The film keep stimulating wonder, and titillating narrative questions: “How far will the gangsters go… especially on camera?” “Don’t they know we are watching them… aghast?” “Why have they been tolerated for so long?” There are adequate answers and explanations of the gangsters’ performances but explanations would dampen audience fascination with the sideshow.
What was the Medan gangsters' role in the act of killing?
In spite of the scale of their deeds, the Medan gangsters featured in “The Act of Killing” are, in fact, no more than foot soldiers and footnotes to a much larger drama – a 50-year sequence of upheavals, which permitted a paranoid and aggressive U.S., with other allies, to depose left-leaning leaders and popular movements in any way they saw fit – all over the world. It began in Iran in 1953, then in Indonesia, 1965, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia starting in 1965, in Chile, 1973, then in El Salvador and Nicaragua, 1979, in Guatemala in 1982, in Iraq, 2001, and then some. There is no mention in Oppenheimer’s film of the role of the U.S. in the Indonesian massacres, or of the bigger Cold War drama.
What is the most tragic line in the Congo documentary?
Yes, I watched that one and it made me regret not writing more about the political subtext of this film. The most tragic line in the doc is Congo 's "There are men like me all over the world" -- that is, uneducated stooges who fell in with gangsters and military thugs as young men and knew little else of life. How much of his madness is an expression of institutional psychopathy, the kind that made our own government and business leaders pal up with Suharto?
How does Congo use the film?
Still fit and spry in his sixties, Congo uses the film to confront facts long denied publicly and long sublimated personally. He and his pals believe that no court, from local authorities to the International Criminal Court, can prosecute them for their crimes 40 years after the fact. This gives them the confidence to deliver unguarded performances for their movie and offer astonishingly candid testimony for Oppenheimer's. Yet almost every night, Congo says, some of the hundreds of victims he killed with his own hands visit him in his dreams.
Who directed the Congo telenovela?
The reenactments strive for brutal accuracy while a few fantasy sequences give the impression of a comical telenovela co-directed by John Waters and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Congo's pal, the portly, vicious but hilarious paramilitary leader Herman Koto, even appears in outrageous beauty-queen drag, an Indonesian Divine.
Is the act of killing cold blooded?
The Act of Killing. Killing is not necessarily a cold business, and killers are not necessarily cold-blooded. "The Act of Killing" introduces us to several Indonesian mass murderers who could be movie stars. They jump at the chance offered by this documentary's maker, Joshua Oppenheimer, to make their own movie, ...
Is there a shortage of dark, grim documentary films?
There's never been a shortage of dark, grim documentaries that catalog life's cruelty, horrors and banality of evil. Thanks to the documentary genre, I have watched hundreds of hours of war crimes, genocides and miscarriages of justice carried out by unremarkable men with dimly lit souls. "The Act of Killing" bids to outdo them all. I'm not sure even the film's powerhouse executive producers, Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, have ever presented cognitive havoc so densely yet elegantly packed into one documentary.
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