The Act of Injustice? In the film The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer, they direct the attention towards the past slaughter of questionable “communist” citizens of Indonesia in the 1960s. The 2013 history documentary Oppenheimer primarily casts Anwar Congo and Herman Koto as his interviewees. The importance they serve is to give the film an ethos appeal by adding credibility to the events some 50+ years ago by including the perpetrators to the mass murder. Unlike other interviews with criminals, they aren’t incarcerated in interrogation for their wrong-doings. They are free men who were never held accountable for their disturbing actions, many of which they grotesquely demonstrate on camera. The reasons why The Act of Killing
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The close-minded might not see past the urge to punish the criminals, but the more open-minded might ask themselves if they really are criminals or just people following the higher up’s commands like those of string puppets. The audience may think that anyone with morals or a sense of right and wrong would see through the government’s vicious intentions, but a simple review of Milgram experiment surprisingly shows how many people can become capable of such evil. What this case shows is the diffusion of responsibility through the authority figures. The Act of Killing can at least in part relate to this experiment. Like the participants in the Milgram project, or actual hardened criminals, Anwar and Herman may be harshly ridiculed and viewed as scum but in reality people such as this who demonstrate evil at a particular moment, like the audience they enjoy hobbies and value families, friends and things we hold dear as well. The documentary warrants the audience to consider reprieve, imploring the idea of forgiveness instead of settling with an “eye for and …show more content…
It establishes credibility through reenactments and testimonies of witnesses to their country’s history. Oppenheimer doesn’t hold any hostility or favoritism during the film, showing his professional observation in is to call the audience to form their own opinion on the matter. The audience is faced with the unresolved conflict of opinions to graciously accept the past for what it is or prosecute/execute the perpetrators as to heal some sort of empty sourness held in for so long. Oppenheimer’s power to feed us undistorted knowledge, still to get many to change their outlook on the executioners from beginning to end is impressive to say the
The close-minded might not see past the urge to punish the criminals, but the more open-minded might ask themselves if they really are criminals or just people following the higher up’s commands like those of string puppets. The audience may think that anyone with morals or a sense of right and wrong would see through the government’s vicious intentions, but a simple review of Milgram experiment surprisingly shows how many people can become capable of such evil. What this case shows is the diffusion of responsibility through the authority figures. The Act of Killing can at least in part relate to this experiment. Like the participants in the Milgram project, or actual hardened criminals, Anwar and Herman may be harshly ridiculed and viewed as scum but in reality people such as this who demonstrate evil at a particular moment, like the audience they enjoy hobbies and value families, friends and things we hold dear as well. The documentary warrants the audience to consider reprieve, imploring the idea of forgiveness instead of settling with an “eye for and …show more content…
It establishes credibility through reenactments and testimonies of witnesses to their country’s history. Oppenheimer doesn’t hold any hostility or favoritism during the film, showing his professional observation in is to call the audience to form their own opinion on the matter. The audience is faced with the unresolved conflict of opinions to graciously accept the past for what it is or prosecute/execute the perpetrators as to heal some sort of empty sourness held in for so long. Oppenheimer’s power to feed us undistorted knowledge, still to get many to change their outlook on the executioners from beginning to end is impressive to say the