Film No. 49 (2015) The Look of Silence. July 12th.

Film No. 49 (2015) July 12th.  2.00 PM LUNA SX Fremantle. 

"If you keep making an issue of the past, it will definitely happen again". (The view of an ex murderer as Adi presses him for information about what happened to his brother in 1965)

 

The Look of Silence.


We sometimes go to the cinema to escape from reality and know that when watching Arnie in his latest blockbuster we are hooking up with a contrived hero. To watch Adi quietly wander through the horrific maze left behind after the 1965 massacres in Indonesia as he tries to make sense of the motives of fellow villagers who knifed his brother to death, is to hook up with a real hero. The gentle manner Adi displays reminded me of Ghandi and the effect he had on the antagonists of his time. A peaceful manner is such an effective way to send a message. 

Adi is our hero but perhaps Joshua Oppenheimer is our modern day Ghandi. After the horror he depicted in his first documentary of the 1965 massacres, The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer has done something far more dangerous. After giving the killers an opportunity to show the world the senselessness of their deeds via The Act, this time he gives a gentleman (Adi) the chance to bring those killers to account. I say dangerous because Adi and his family have surely risked their lives by participating in this brilliant film.

The title of this film says it all. The silence comes from close up after close up of Adi, his beautiful but tortured mother, his crippled father, the killers and their families. The camera rolls as the faces, in silence, reveal more than any words can portray. Adi sadly watches the TV as recordings of killers talk of their deeds in lighthearted terms; then there are the killers, in the now, who become uncomfortable after they reveal awful truths never before heard by their sons and daughters. The silence comes from the way Oppenheimer edits this mini masterpiece.

Something very bad happened in Indonesia in 1965. Something very bad indeed. Try imagining that people in your suburb or district had been recruited by the government (military in nature) to cull fellow citizens because they had been given information (propaganda) that specific people were communists. The issue is that this is still happening on a smaller scale in Indonesia today. Oppenheimer is alerting the rest of the world to this reality. Adi's sad eyes will haunt us for a time but the radiant beauty he reflects when watching the uncomplicated antics of his daughter will help to heal the wounds. Film is such an important window to the world!  11GUMS