In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Saturday 11 January 2014

THE ACT OF KILLING [2013]

Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary The Act Of Killing is one of those films that is so bat-shit crazy I'm more than certain it will haunt my thoughts for weeks to come.
The basic idea is to get former Indonesian death squad leaders to re-enact the executions they performed in the mid '60's, in whatever film genre they prefer.  The results are Hollywood-ized gangster films and a surreal, whimsical musical number that is both baffling and disturbingly amusing.  At first the leaders act as if they've been celebrities all these years, brushing off their actions as natural order but as they revisit these buried feelings things become clearer to them and revealing their worst nightmares.
It sounds obvious that a study of mass murderers should be so disturbing but I still felt unprepared for what sort of impact it would have.

4 anonymous credits out of 5

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