Saturday, January 24, 2015

Indonesia's untold history - "The Act of Killing" - disturbing subject/ images for IB Students and older only

Werner Herzog, Errol Morris talk about the film which has swept awards around the world.

What Indonesians really think about The Act of Killing

To understand how Oppenheimer's film challenges the Indonesian national narrative and the public discourse, it is essential to explore how the film is received and understood by an Indonesian audience. I screened The Act of Killing at a university in Yogyakarta. The audience – a mixed group of students, history professors, and friends of the university – included a former political prisoner who had spent 14 years of his life in captivity, where he experienced horrendous torture. He was never a communist; he wasn't even politically active. He still wonders why he was imprisoned under Suharto's regime. After the screening, he was profoundly touched, and he argued that the younger generations had to see this film so they could build a society with values far different from the ones Suharto established.

Indonesia's official history is plastered with anti-communist bias and fabrications that are presented as facts. The Indonesian school system is still, to a great extent, characterised by an authoritarian tradition – one of the reasons why many students have not been critical of the country's past. It's not surprising that the film provoked anger and frustration among the audience. Many felt betrayed by the political elite.