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Angling for Political Action, Joshua Oppenheimer Takes His Latest Film to Washington
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American documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer has spent more than a decade of his career attempting to lift the veil of forgetfulness hanging over one of the postwar era’s worst mass murders—the killing of as many as 1 million Indonesians in 1965 and 1966 by military and right-wing forces, ostensibly reacting to a failed Communist coup.
It’s not as if the massacres were ignored at the time; they were widely reported, including extensive photographic coverage in Life and other international magazines. A successful film with the failed coup as its backdrop—The Year of Living Dangerously—helped make Mel Gibson an international star in 1982.
Gradually, however, the memory of these killings faded outside Indonesia, where families were forced to mourn their dead in silence by decade after decade of authoritarian repression. The United Sates, which regards Jakarta as an important economic partner and ally in the struggle against Islamic extremism, was just as happy to see the silence deepen, since it was widely suspected at the time that American intelligence agencies colluded in the anti-Communist violence.
Oppenheimer, 41, has now produced two critically acclaimed films that attempt to expose these atrocities amid strong resistance from Jakarta and silence from Washington. His first film on the murders, The Act of Killing, garnered an Academy Award nomination. So, too, has Oppenheimer’s latest installment, The Look of Silence, which follows one man’s attempt to identify and confront his brother’s killers. Since it premiered last year at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, The Look of Silence has received worldwide attention, recently receiving the prestigious Peace Film Prize at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
It’s not as if the massacres were ignored at the time; they were widely reported, including extensive photographic coverage in Life and other international magazines. A successful film with the failed coup as its backdrop—The Year of Living Dangerously—helped make Mel Gibson an international star in 1982.
Gradually, however, the memory of these killings faded outside Indonesia, where families were forced to mourn their dead in silence by decade after decade of authoritarian repression. The United Sates, which regards Jakarta as an important economic partner and ally in the struggle against Islamic extremism, was just as happy to see the silence deepen, since it was widely suspected at the time that American intelligence agencies colluded in the anti-Communist violence.
Oppenheimer, 41, has now produced two critically acclaimed films that attempt to expose these atrocities amid strong resistance from Jakarta and silence from Washington. His first film on the murders, The Act of Killing, garnered an Academy Award nomination. So, too, has Oppenheimer’s latest installment, The Look of Silence, which follows one man’s attempt to identify and confront his brother’s killers. Since it premiered last year at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, The Look of Silence has received worldwide attention, recently receiving the prestigious Peace Film Prize at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
The rest at link.
