Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, this Indonesian film is seen as almost a sequel, more a companion piece, to his previous Oscar winning documentary The Act of Killing, and it was one I had to see when it came to awards season. Basically a middle-aged man, whose brother was murdered during Indonesian killings of 1965–66, a purge of "communists", confronts the men who did the killings. For safety and concern for the man, he and man of the film's production crew are not fully identified, they are only credited as "anonymous". The film includes the man watching (what appears to be) extra footage from The Act of Killing, and video of the men who killed his brother. The man later visits some of the killers and their collaborators, including his uncle, who is pretending to have an eye exam, none of the killers appear to show any remorse, the daughter of one of them looks shaken hearing the details of the killings for the first time. Where the director's previous delivered many shocking moments and haunting footage of the real-life genocide, this follow-up film leaves most of the imagery to your imagination, there were certainly some terrible scenes of the killers admitting their crimes and almost smiling about it, and other horrible discussions, but not a lot is seen, you could argue this is a good thing and makes it less hard to watch and less shocking, but it is still an interesting documentary film. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Documentary. Very good!
Review of The Look of Silence
