REVIEW: The Look of Silence [2015]

“If we didn’t drink human blood, we’d go crazy” Just when you thought a documentary couldn’t get more harrowing than Joshua Oppenheimer‘s look at murderers in The Act of Killing, the director gives editorial power to their victims in The Look of Silence. The descriptive label “companion piece” is apt because they both exist in tandem to find the truth from every angle of the 1965 Indonesian genocide wherein all who opposed a military coup (“Communists”) were rounded up and exterminated. Rather than Oppenheimer behind the camera asking questions of…

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REVIEW: The Act of Killing [2012]

“They proudly told us stories about what they did” Director Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing can be described as nothing short of a masterpiece. It’s a one-of-a-kind document that gets into the mind of madmen with the blood of genocide on their hands by displaying their hubris, remorselessness, and cavalier attitudes firsthand. Oppenheimer doesn’t go down a laundry list of scholars, victims, or survivors for floating head commentary to set the stage or vilify evil—he lets the murderers themselves do it with their permission and moreover their satisfaction.…

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