For the majority of The Look of Silence, we watch a man named Adi confront several men responsible for the gruesome murder of his brother, Ramli. One by one he looks them in the eye and does something extraordinary—he asks them how they feel.

In 1965-66 Indonesia, over a million people associated with the communist community were slaughtered, a genocide so terrible many Indonesians have deluded themselves to the long-term madness and pain suffered by those who were affected by the atrocity (which accounts for just about everybody). Director Joshua Oppenheimer‘s Oscar-nominated 2013 documentary The Act of Killing told the story of the genocide through the memories of several of its perpetrators. The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer’s companion documentary to the latter, is a more somber, sobering affair though it’s no less hard to watch.

That brings us back to Adi, sitting in front of the men responsible for Ramli’s murder, staring at them with unblinking empathy and a bit of disbelief. Most people in Adi’s position would be seething balls of anger, and we would all understand. What a wild thing, to confront your brother’s killers and ask them how they feel. In one of the film’s confrontations, Adi asks a man who works in legislature how he can do politics knowing he’s surrounded by families broken by the butcherings he oversaw in the ’60s. The man’s response is predictably defensive and harsh, but the amazing thing is that Adi takes the time to ask the man about his life rather than unleash a tirade about his own loss, his family’s loss.

Adi’s strength and dignity is what The Look of Silence is all about. One after another, we watch him speak to these murderers, all of them in a state of denial and false absolution. They’re blind to the horrors they’re responsible for and have yet to see what Adi and the victims’ families see, that to not face the ghosts of the past head-on is an act of disrespect that will never be forgiven until they fess up and accept their culpability.

A recurring image punctuates the story, reinforcing the reality of Adi’s sorrow: we see him sitting calmly, eyes alert. He’s watching footage of a group of men laughing and boasting as they recall in great detail how they tortured and splayed their fellow countrymen in the anti-communist purge. They even reenact Ramli’s murder. Unlike these, Adi faces the past with honor, painful as it is.

Like The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence is excruciating to watch. It covers one of the ugliest stories any of us will ever know, and Oppenheimer’s approach gives us no safety zone or space for relief. While some documentaries offer sweeping music to lighten the blow of the heavy material, Oppenheimer provides no music at all, challenging us to reckon with this madness just as Adi is challenging the perpetrators. The stillness of the imagery is haunting, with shots of empty scenery evoking the lost souls from the slaughter. And appropriately so: the truth about the deceased is exactly what the perpetrators are so scared to dredge up.

If only the killers would express a measure of regret for their mistakes, Adi would forgive them and embrace their admission. Adi’s an optometrist, and with each confrontation he brings with him tools to fit his interviewees with glasses. The fact that Adi is risking his life talking to these men (not to mention his family’s) hangs over the film like a thundercloud. In one of the later sessions, a perpetrator senile in his old age is joined by his daughter to help facilitate the interview. The daughter learns of his murderous ways right then and there for the first time and is immediately apologetic and grateful to Adi for his patience and grace.

It’s the only time we come up for air, though; in the next scene, Adi speaks with the sons of a perpetrator, and they all but throw a tantrum, verbally damning Adi and Oppenheimer from their home. Oppenheimer’s heartbreaking films have caused a great stir in Indonesia, where a conversation about the purge is finally starting to emerge. Judging from the reactions of the murderers The Look of Silence captures, this may be a conversation that could go on for decades. Heaven knows where they’ll end up, but at least through this film and Adi’s mission the victims have a voice.

It’s a giant show this week as Oscar-nominated filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer joins us to talk about The Look of Silence, his follow-up to his critically-acclaimed 2013 documentary, The Act of Killing. Also joining the show is filmmaker Perry Blackshear, talking about They Look Like People, his new film about love and nightmares, as well as sharing his Favorite Bloodless Horror Scenes with Bernard and CJ. All that, plus our Indie Picks of the Week, on this very special edition of the Way Too Indiecast.

This week’s Way Too Indiecast is sponsored by MUBI, an curated online cinema that brings its members a hand-picked selection of the best indie, foreign, and classic films. Visit www.mubi.com/waytooindie for a free 30 day trial.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (1:45)
• They Look Like People (7:15)
• Favorite Bloodless Horror Scenes (18:00)
• The Look of Silence (32:55)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Phoenix review
Christian Petzold interview

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After making The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer goes back to the same subject matter for his follow-up The Look of Silence. A brief background: In The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer followed several people responsible for slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands, of suspected communists in the 1960s military coup of Indonesia. Oppenheimer was shocked to see that, not only did the military get away with murdering over one million people, the perpetrators continue to stay in power, bragging openly about their war crimes.

Oppenheimer’s ability to let the killers indulge led to sickening profound results, but for The Look of Silence the perspective switches from criminal to victim. Adi, an optometrist in a small village, wants to expose the reality about his country’s past, his motivation being the brutal murder of his older brother by death squad leaders. Since these war criminals are Adi’s neighbours, he’s able to see them under the pretense of checking their eyes for new glasses. Oppenheimer films Adi as he gently probes and confronts the men responsible for his brother’s death, something that causes plenty of resistance from the interview subjects.

Scenes of Adi confronting the men responsible for his brother’s death are inherently compelling, but compared to Act of Killing, a complete masterpiece, The Look of Silence doesn’t come close to matching its predecessors’ greatness. Oppenheimer focuses on the denial and excuses people make for their past atrocities, but this was already covered effectively in The Act of Killing. The confrontations end up providing exactly what one would expect: constant denials, lies and anger at the line of questioning from Adi. The Look of Silence definitely packs a lot of power, but it feels more supplementary to Oppenheimer’s brilliant first film.

You know the subject matter for your documentary is exceptional when you have both Werner Herzog and Error Morris listed as executive producers. This is the case with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing—a powerful documentary about Indonesia’s violent history from roughly fifty years back when more than a million of alleged hostile Communists were wrongly murdered. What helped the documentary earn such strong critical support is that it reenacts the horrific mass murders that took place from the most creditable source; the murderers themselves. The Act of Killing feels like a completely fresh take on the documentary genre by letting the subjects have full control, making the film-within-a-film not feel gimmicky, and rids itself of preachy narration to exemplify the message.

The Act of Killing begins by providing historic details behind the mass murders in Indonesia by a military coup in 1965. Back then the Indonesian government was overthrown a military group who accused anyone who opposed the dictatorship of being a communist. This army used paramilitaries and local gangsters to carry out the killing of over one million accused “communists”. The documentary follows several individuals who were responsible for these murders and offers them to a chance to recreate scenes about the killings in whatever way they wish; that is when The Act of Killing becomes horrifically fascinating.

The main focus of the documentary is a man named Anwar Congo—one of the most feared gangsters of that time period. Congo proudly recalls the mass murders he was responsible for back when he as a ruthless member of the paramilitary group called Pancasila Youth. Eventually he admits that his sleep is affected by the killings and that is where the documentary beings to reveal its agenda. At first he justifies what he did by looking at it from the perspective of freeing the individuals by sending them to heaven. But the reenactments end up hitting a note a little too close to home, even for the murderers.

What really makes the documentary work is how hands-off Oppenheimer is with his subjects. Instead of steering them into any set direction, he simply allows them to decide how they want to present the “truths”. In doing so, he was able to capture the conflicts they had with each other about what to show. At one point a debate breaks out on whether or not they should reveal the real motive behind a certain scene and someone declares, “Not everything true should be made public.” By keeping an arm’s-length away it allowed the gangsters to come to their own realizations without the aid of Oppenheimer to force it upon them.

The Act of Killing serves up a bone-chilling look at how comfortable a group of mass murderers are with justifying their shockingly violent past. They were never punished for murdering thousands of people because of the consequences someone would face if they did, even today. By allowing these men to recreate their murders, Oppenheimer is able to capture an unsettling point of view. At the same time, he briefly exposes the corruption in their current political system as citizens are still being paid for their vote. The length of the documentary is felt just before the final conclusion, but it is such a triumph that it makes it well worth the wait.