Dr. Alexandra Moore

English

Professor, 2016

The Act of Killing
by Joshua Oppenheimer

The Academy award nominated film, The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, is one of those rare productions that changes both the world with which it engages and the way we understand what film can do. In the film, Oppenheimer invites perpetrators of Indonesia's 1965-66 anti-Communist genocide to re-imagine their crimes in the style of the movie stars they emulate. In documenting this process of imagination, the film began to dissolve the veil of impunity that has sheltered the men themselves as well as the New Order regime. Working in concert with human rights activists within Indonesia, the film and its companion piece, The Look of Silence, have launched a public discussion and reassessment of the violence of the state, and they have created a space in which victims' suffering can be acknowledged and addressed.

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