The Act of Killing Review

"War crimes are defined by the winners," this statement is sad but true. Last year I was interviewed by my school's newspaper about my opinions on the 2012 presidential election. I talked about my thoughts on the youth vote, what I wish to see in the next four years, and what I thought of the candidates. I don't remember what I said but I do remember being critical on both sides, what more so than the rest was what I thought of the United States drone strikes in Pakistan. Personally, I think it's a travesty. That our government will sign off on attacks that will kill dozens of civilians in the hopes of killing one or two hostiles. There have been hundreds of these attacks resulting in the deaths of up to 1000 civilians. War crimes are defined as "An action carried out during the conduct of war that violates accepted international rules of war," such as killing unarmed civilians that are not members of the military. You know why America can do this? Because no one is going to challenge America and accuse us of war crimes. We "won" the war in the Middle East, now we get to make the rules; and that's what happened in The Act of Killing. In 1965, the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military. Anyone that opposed the military were labeled as communists. In less than a year with direct support from western governments, over one million "communists" were killed. The army used gangsters and paramilitary organizations to carry out the genocide. To this day, the people that overthrew the government and assisted in the killings still hold much of the power in the government. The film revolves around an old man named Anwar Congo, who lead one of the most notorious death squads during this time; Anwar himself killed approximately 1000 people. When you look at this man you see a happy go lucky grandfather. He likes to party, play golf, hang with friends, and is even treated like a national hero. You look at him, you don't think he's a mass murder. The worst part about it, he's proud of what he did and boasts about it. The documentarians following Anwar and some other gangsters give them a challenge, they want them to recreate their memories of these killings. They give them sets, props, make-up, and actors to play the victims. They even ask some of the gangsters to play the victims. This movie is something special, nothing like it has been released during my lifetime. The closest comparison I can think of would be the 1985 documentary Shoah, but the thing is The Act of Killing is the exact opposite of Shoah. While Shoah is about the victims that survived the holocaust, and the stories they tell of the horrors that were acted on them. The Act of Killing is about executioners as they tell their stories and the horrible ways they killed their victims. This is a disturbing movie, listening to these gangsters talk makes you feel sick to your stomach. They almost get a sick pleasure out of it, like they're reliving the glory days. Although there is a gangster who does a lot of cross dressing for some reason and he's pretty funny. You hear them tell stories in graphic detail on how they killed people, and the feeling is hard to explain. You hear stories of how people die in the holocaust and other events like that, but it's something different to hear them from the perpetrators. If I had to chose one word to describe this movie, it would be surreal. It's hard to describe unless you actually watch it. This movie is something else, it's a documentary that we get once a generation. The only criticism I have of it would be that it is unnecessarily long, they could have cut out about half an hour to forty minutes of footage. This is an important movie that everyone needs to see. This is one of those movies that makes you happy to have the life you have, because you realize how lucky you are. There hasn't been a movie like this released in my lifetime and I doubt another one will be.

5/5 Stars