Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Wednesday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
Asia, explained.
Documentary trailer: The Act of KillingDocumentary trailer: The Act of Killing
About the author
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
Topics
I'm sorry to spring this disturbing trailer on readers as you wind down for the weekend (a long weekend in Australia), but this film looks too astonishing not to share. Here's part of the synopsis:
When Sukarno was overthrown by Suharto following the tragic 30 September Movement in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders...Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads...The Act of Killing is a nightmarish vision of a frighteningly banal culture of impunity in which killers can joke about crimes against humanity on television chat shows, and celebrate moral disaster with the ease and grace of a soft shoe dance number...
...Anwar and his friends were devoted fans of James Dean, John Wayne, and Victor Mature. They explicitly fashioned themselves and their methods of murder after their Hollywood idols...In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends agree to tell the filmmakers the story of the killings. But their idea of being in a movie is not to provide testimony for a documentary: they want to star in the kind of films they most love from their days scalping tickets at the cinemas.
The Act of Killing received critical acclaim at last year's Toronto Film Festival. The official website is here, though with no reference to an Australian release.
Sam Roggeveen
