"An important exploration of the complex psychology of mass murderers.” -Journalist Chris Hedges “I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade... it is unprecedented in the history of cinema.” –Documentarian Werner Herzog “A Masterpiece – an examination of institutionalized violence, guilt on individual and national scales, and the role of cinema to both shape and reflect our darkest impulses.” –Village Voice
All are invited to a screening of “The Act of Killing”
Tuesday, October 29 @ 6:30 p.m. in LaRose Digital Theater, Koury Business
(dir: Joshua Oppenheimer, US/Denmark)
Themes of the film: psychology of mass killing; perpetrator impunity; post-conflict justice; representation, cinema, and violence; Indonesian communist period and genocide/mass killings
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD5oMxbMcHM
Summary: The Act of Killing has won over 25 international awards and has received overwhelming critical acclaim for its raw and shocking look at the psychology of mass killing that took place in 1960s Indonesia. 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 yodeling cowboys as they re-enact the killings of their past as they live as free men in present-day Indonesia. Their foray into filmmaking is being celebrated in the media and debated on television, even though Anwar and his friends are mass murderers. 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. (adapted from film website)
Discussion of the film to follow.
For info: http://theactofkilling.com/
Interview with the director: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/build-my-gallows-high-joshua-oppenheimer-act-killing
For critics’ reviews: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_act_of_killing/
NPR story on Indonesia’s Communist Purge:
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/09/150149910/exposing-indonesias-cold-war-communist-purge