The Look of Silence

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

Director Joshua Oppenheimer's follows-up his masterful documentary The Act of Killing (2012) with The Look of Silence, which continues his examination of Indonesia's violent past; specifically the brutal, mass killings of communists in 1965. The film perfectly illustrates the oft quoted words by William Faulkner "The past is never dead. It's not even past." The murder of one million communists by the Indonesian military, who wrested power from the government, has hardly been forgotten by those who were victimized directly or indirectly. We know from Oppenheimer's previous film that those responsible have hardly expressed any guilt or remorse for their crimes and in fact, often recall their acts of brutality with a degree of glee; as if the deaths were amusing anecdotes. It is appalling to learn that many of those responsible still occupy positions of power in the government and will never be punished or held accountable for their evil.

In the surreal The Act of Killing, perpetrators were asked to recreate their crimes on film in a movie genre of their choosing. The Look of Silence employs a more conventional documentarian's approach; victims and perpetrators alike are interviewed about the brutal purge of 1965. Serving as the film's conscience is Adi Rukun, whose parents managed to survive the wave of violence though his older brother was tortured and eventually murdered by the death squads.

We learn the death squads were made up of ordinary citizens enlisted by the military to carry out their dirty work; savagery executed in earnest and without compunction. Adi, with Oppenheimer at his side, conducts interviews with the perpetrators and the victims. What interviewees share is always fascinating. Adding an odd texture to the proceedings is Adi's optometry work, which provides a kind of distraction for the interviewees and a means for Oppenheimer to tease confessional responses from his interviewees. The very first shot in the film of an optometrist's ocular device resting on a subject's face gives us a taste of the visual eccentricity we saw in The Act of Killing. We also see Adi interact with his elderly and infirm parents; his emaciated, blind and nearly deaf father and his frail, white-haired mother.

It is astonishing to find the squad members are so forthcoming about their past and their willingness to share the most gruesome details of the killings and torture. Adi finds the two men who murdered Adi's brother, who unashamedly recount, in gory detail, how they carried out the killng and how they disposed of his body. Throughout the film, Adi is able to listen to tales of butchery and sadism with superhuman equanimity, which is a story in itself.

As one might expect, the guilty are unapologetic and if sorrow is ever expressed, it is solely articulated by their offspring. In one scene, Adi and a death squad member's daughter bond and embrace--one of the few gestures of reconciliation we see in the film.
So much about the film is powerful. I found Adi's optometry tests to be a perfect metaphor for magnifying the past with clear objectivity. The metaphor is almost too perfect. In the back of my mind was the age-old question about how neighbors and countrymen are able to visit the worst brutalities on one another in times of social upheaval. Another pertinent question might be how former victims and death squad members are able to live together in the same neighborhood without mutual hostility. It is quite disturbing to hear one death squad member talk about how it could all happen again; a frightening prospect looming in Indonesia's future.

Oppenheimer's film offers no closure nor does it offer any hope of justice. Justice would be impossible to obtain anyway when the perpetrators are the majority and the incumbent power.

It makes sense that master documentarians Werner Herzog and Errol Morris would serve as executive directors on Oppenheimer's film. Both directors are well-acquainted with Oppenheimer's techniques and are no strangers to tackling tough, controversial subjects.

Though the film is powerful and unwavering in its pursuit of truth, I didn't find it to be as absorbing as Oppenheimer's previous film. The Act of Killing told me everything I needed to know about the purge and Indonesia's strange relationship to its past. Oppenheimer's film certainly deserves its Oscar nomination; it is fearless and honest but something of a repeat. Nevertheless, it deserves the recognition the nomination brings. If accountability and justice are impossibilities, at least Oppenheimer's film doesn't let the past escape scrutiny.