Joshua Oppenheimer’s Look of Silence A cinematic look at the Banality of Evil

Abstract

Questions have been raised by many filmmakers over the years as to whether the 1965 coup in Indonesia was the handiwork of the Indonesian Communist Party. American/British documentary filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer, who has previously made The Act of Killing on the same subject, poses the question again with a new documentary. But this time, he takes a cinematic approach by fully utilising the language of film to create a solemn and meditative work. He focuses on the faces and the silence of the individuals involved, in an effort to probe their minds. The individuals are some of the surviving killers as well as the brother and family of one of those who were killed. Oppenheimer also places emphasis on landscape as character. In the area of the killings, the landscape stands as a silent witness to the horrors perpetrated there. The demonisation of the communists continues till today in Indonesia, as it does in Malaysia as well as Singapore. The millennium saw revisionist histories surfacing that explored the blatant demonisation and vilification of communists. Films with a creative approach began to be made by young people who explored what had transpired, in an effort to foreground the truth.