The Act of Killing Review

The film focuses on the Indonesian killings of 1965–66, an ostensibly anti-communist purge in which more than 500,000 people were killed. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, the President of Indonesia, following the failed coup of the 30 September Movement in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry in Medan (North Sumatra) were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leading the most powerful death in North Sumatra. They also extorted money from ethnic Chinese before killing them. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1,000 people by methods such as strangulation with wire.

Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of the right-wing paramilitary organization Pemuda Pancasila that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who are openly involved in corruption, election rigging, and clearing people from their land for developers, and genocide.

Invited by Oppenheimer, Anwar and his friends recount and re-enact their experiences and some of their killings for the cameras, and make dramatic scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. The scenes are produced in the style of their favorite film genres: gangster, western, and musical. Various aspects of Anwar and his friends' filmmaking process are shown, but as they begin to dramatize Anwar's own nightmares, the fiction scenes begin to take over the film's form, leading the film to become increasingly surreal. Oppenheimer has called the result "a documentary of the imagination".

Some of Anwar's friends state that the killings were wrong, while others worry about the consequences of the story on their public image.

After Anwar plays a victim, he cannot continue. He says that he feels what his victims have felt. Oppenheimer, from behind the camera, states that it was worse for the victims because they knew they were going to be killed, whereas Anwar was only acting. Anwar then expresses doubts over whether or not he has sinned, tearfully saying he does not want the memories of what he did to come back to him. He revisits the rooftop where he claims many of his killings took place, and gags repeatedly. The dancers from the film's theatrical poster are seen before the credits begin to roll.

The picture above shows Anwar close to the begining of the documentary, watching himself as he acted out a killing on the rooftop where many others died. He states that he would have never worn white pants, and that he looks like he is going on a picnic. Even though this scene is before where he realizes the wrong he has done, we can still see the sorrow in his face.

This documentary gives a very strong sense of realness, because nothing is held back. Anwar and his friends are not shy to say that they killed happily. They loved it.

Alot of their inspiration came from American ganster films and actors, such as The Godfather and Al Pacino. It was such a great influence that they even dressed like they did and used their methods of killing.