Comments on: Review: Joshua Oppenheimer’s Spellbinding ‘The Look Of Silence’

By: Jess

Jess — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:57:10 +0000

@Daren, yes indeed I found out the very same thing re that scene when I interviewed Oppenheimer — that interview is now up (posted July 16th, can\’t link in comments, but if you click the Oppenheimer tag above you\’ll get there) and has a lot of context about that moment, if you are interested. Thanks for stopping by.

By: Daren

Daren — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:57:10 +0000

I don\’t know if anybody reads these (ex-Dissolver looking for a new home) but I saw a Q&A with Joshua Oppenheimer last week and I wanted to add some context to that "exploitative" scene late in the movie with the father. I had the same reaction as most every other reviewer while watching that scene. But Oppenheimer explained that that was the first scene that made him want to make a follow-up to "The Act of Killing". And he didn\’t even shoot it. It was shot by Adi. Oppenheimer had told Adi that Adi\’s idea of confronting the killers in interviews was too dangerous and that he didn\’t want to do it. But Adi showed him that scene that he\’d shot, following his father around their house, and told Joshua that it was too late for his father, but not too late for his children. I\’m doing a poor job of paraphrasing him now but, Adi felt that his father was trapped in fear, and that he had no way out. Adi hoped that in the act of confronting the evil that still dominated his community, he could save victims (re: the people of Indonesia) from ending up like his father. Scared and alone in what is supposed to be one\’s own private sanctuary: their home.

These two films together are two of the most powerful and convicting (for me, as an American) films I\’ve ever seen. I hope they make it into film school curriculums, though they should make it into all AMERICAN curriculums. Or maybe I should just tell people I know to watch it. I need to have more realistic expectations.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:57:10 +0000

I liked that in Art of Killing, there was a brief mention, almost a throwaway line of why these guys could never be tried in the International Court. The answer, of course, is that such a trial would deeply shame the United States, which implicitly allowed the butchery to happen. At the time, Indonesia was in the American camp, and so, "cracking down on Communists" was something of course our government could not condemn without raising a thorny debate in our own country. Ultimately, these guys took their cues from us, and we could have stopped these slaughters at any point if our government had just given a nod. Of course, we\’re not responsible for Indonesian lives, and it\’s not like our government told them to butcher their political opponents or to use such savage methods, but I like that Oppenheimer shows that our hands are not clean either.