The Dialectic of Truth and Fiction in Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Film, History & Criticism, Performing Arts
Cover of the book The Dialectic of Truth and Fiction in Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing by Milo Sweedler, Colman Hogan, Marta Marín-Dòmine, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
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Author: Milo Sweedler, Colman Hogan, Marta Marín-Dòmine ISBN: 9781771121286
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press Publication: October 1, 2014
Imprint: Laurier Digital Language: English
Author: Milo Sweedler, Colman Hogan, Marta Marín-Dòmine
ISBN: 9781771121286
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication: October 1, 2014
Imprint: Laurier Digital
Language: English

The Act of Killing is a documentary film on the Indonesian genocide that took place between October 1965 and March 1966, during which time an estimated 500,000 to 2.5 million accused communists, including landless farmers, unionized workers, labour organizers, intellectuals and ethnic Chinese Indonesians, were killed. However, much of the film is dedicated to fictional re-enactments of the 1965–66 killings.

Oppenheimer’s approach is to bring into relief the contours of the extermination of communists in Indonesia by inviting former death-squad leaders and paramilitary gangsters to re-enact the killings in whatever ways they choose. They opt at times for a realist aesthetic and at other times for genres as diverse as Hollywood westerns, film noir gangster movies, and glitzy musicals.

The text explores the aesthetic and political consequences springing from this modality of representation while comparing the film to other representative testimonial documentaries of genocides and extermination.

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The Act of Killing is a documentary film on the Indonesian genocide that took place between October 1965 and March 1966, during which time an estimated 500,000 to 2.5 million accused communists, including landless farmers, unionized workers, labour organizers, intellectuals and ethnic Chinese Indonesians, were killed. However, much of the film is dedicated to fictional re-enactments of the 1965–66 killings.

Oppenheimer’s approach is to bring into relief the contours of the extermination of communists in Indonesia by inviting former death-squad leaders and paramilitary gangsters to re-enact the killings in whatever ways they choose. They opt at times for a realist aesthetic and at other times for genres as diverse as Hollywood westerns, film noir gangster movies, and glitzy musicals.

The text explores the aesthetic and political consequences springing from this modality of representation while comparing the film to other representative testimonial documentaries of genocides and extermination.

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