ABSTRACT
Joshua Oppenheimer’s film The Act of Killing begins with a troubled man fishing from a wharf on a dark night. Oppenheimer’s plan for reenactment was to re-present history by using the actual people involved in making it. Oppenheimer thought it time to bring this shame to the attention of the West as well as Indonesia, and possibly to set in train a sequence of the apologies and testimonies similar to those presented to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The scene is so lengthy that two reactions are possible. The first is that the emotion caused by the reenactment must be utterly excessive, as excessive as the limitless cruelty it mourns and the inexpiable guilt it confesses. The second is that Anwar has finally figured out what Oppenheimer was after and is faking it. A remarkable cast of former murderers put themselves at his disposal a paramilitary organization that was very busy during the massacres.
