"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large number and the sound of trumpets. "- Voltaire
The films I generally seeks are those with a cast of superbly realized talented actors bringing to life a compelling story. Very rarely, however, are movies that leave you stunned, even traumatized and unable to articulate anything about the movie experience just participated in.
On a recent Monday morning, I was invited to attend a secret screening of the act of killing (Jagal in Indonesian), a film most of us will experience in Indonesia, but don ' have not been able to watch. No more than us, except perhaps through illegal downloads once it is general freedom everywhere, but by mid-year.
Its purpose is the genocide of the alleged "communist" members and associates of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) in 1965/6 following Indonesia's takeover by General Suharto, and the role played in the massacres by 'preman', a word regularly identified in the film as "free men".
Manager, Joshua Oppenheimer
It was during filming bands of Globalization (2003), a participatory documentary project with the plantation workers in north Sumatra, the administrators Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn "... discovered that one of the main objectives of the military in the killings was to destroy the anti-colonial labor movement that existed until 1965, and to attract foreign investors with the promise of, cheap and docile workers abundant natural resources. "
Killers and survivors continued to live in the same villages: the killers were the local power structure. In the questioning and work their way up the heirachy in 2004 they met Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry, leaders of Pasukan Kodok (Frog Squad) in Medan squad most famous dead in northern Sumatra.
In their youth, the two older men were scalpers movie tickets including silver screen heroes were simplistic and manly. The hero of the Congo was John Wayne
The filmmakers offered the two men, and the protected overweight and acolyte of Congo Herman koto which, Congo suggested, could act play that Spanish actor Fernando Sancho, heavy Mexican archtypical in many spaghetti westerns, the opportunity to play in their own film.
boastful about their murders, they agreed to replay their "technical" and some incidents. Scenes switch between pre-production, filmed clips, and discussion of them by the actors-participants :. therefore. "No, we did it this way" And we have a film within the film
The first stage sees the visit Medan areas trying to recruit locals who would be ready to play the distraught women whose husbands and son were taken away to be tortured and killed before their bodies were dumped in Deli, main river of the city.
In one region, the Congo said that they do not recruit there because "it is a communist area." Such banality and indifference is common for much of the film.
Among the printing machines of the Medan Pos, the newspaper publisher, Siruk Ibrahim, said he had decided who would be killed: "My job was to make people hate - and have. beaten to a pulp "
This was earnestly made by the Frog Squad. Congo takes the film crew to the surface of the open roof when it comes to how he would use a length of wire to murder his victims. He explains that the knives and bludgeoning had produced too much blood "that left a bad smell."
The aging thugs are rooted in the power circle today and Congo is a hero to many. For example, while North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin Congo describes how enthusiastically looked after him in his childhood.
(In 2011, Arifin was jailed for six years for corruption, causing losses to the State of Rp.102 billion (c. $ 103.3 million), while Langkat regent 2000-2007)
We see Congo Celebrated at an open air rally by Yapto Soerjosoemarno, the head of Pemuda Pancasila (PP), with the paramilitary organization it claims three million members. In 65/6, PP ran death squads for the Indonesian military, killing thousands of suspected Communists and Chinese Indonesians from North Sumatra province.
Soerjosoemarno, which in 1980 was "appointed" by the squad leaders of the death of PP, then processes the troops. "We have too much democracy - it's chaos"
at a rally inside, PP addressed by SBY to then Vice President Jusuf Kalla. He said, "Preman means" free men ". We need gangsters to get things done. "
Perhaps even more shocking arrival at the location of the reconstruction of a raid on a village with" communists "of then Deputy Minister youth Empowerment Sakhyan Asmara, wearing his orange uniform PP military style. He advised amateur actors to show more realism. He left, and they did, leaving many women and hysterical children, maybe relive residual memories of their family stories.
with this support, it is little wonder that the Congo and Zulkadry, who at one point is seen wearing a T-shirt with short word 'Apathetic' large, have demonstrated little remorse.
the final scene, however, may yet prove the real value of this film.
Congo agrees to play a role as a prisoner about to be pinioned ; there are two takes, after which he said: "I can not do it."
He revisits the killing zone upstairs of Medan and said, "I knew he was wrong, but I had to. "Retches it once, twice, with his head turned away from the camera, and the last we see him standing alone, in silent contemplation.
The version we looked at was long, perhaps be too long. But I could not leave until the end when we got up in silence and separated, traumatized and unable at this time to express what we had just witnessed cinematically. as another said, " the act of killing is a film that is critical and maddening, it needs to be seen, then never looked back "
Web Sites:.
http://theactofkilling.com/
http://www.stopimpunity.org/page93.php