Films › Documentary
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012
Joshua Oppenheimer's method here is the film's central formal argument: he invited Indonesian death squad leaders to write, direct, and perform reenactments of their own killings in whatever genre they chose, gangster film, musical, western, and let the resulting footage stand largely unedited by moral commentary. Cinematographer Carlos Arango de Montis shoots these staged sequences with the same polished coverage a genre film would use, which is the point, it exposes how the perpetrators have absorbed cinema's grammar as a way of narrating their own history. Editor Niels Pagh Andersen, working from an enormous amount of footage, structures the film around escalating discomfort rather than chronology, holding on faces after a scene has technically ended so the audience watches a performer's composure change in real time. The decision to keep the filmmakers largely off camera except when their presence forces a reaction is a lesson in when to intervene versus observe.
What to watch for
Watch the final rooftop scene for how long the camera holds on Anwar Congo's face after the performance ends.
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