The Act Of KillingEdit
The Act of Killing is a 2012 documentary by director Joshua Oppenheimer that investigates the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 by following a circle of former death-squad leaders as they recount and reenact their acts. Rather than presenting a traditional chronicle, the film invites the perpetrators to stage their memories in front of the camera, moving through re-creations in various genres and confronting their own self-justifications. The result is a provocative exploration of power, memory, and the long shadow of political violence, delivered through a lens that emphasizes how governing elites and social culture can domesticate violence and reward it as part of a national project. The documentary has been widely lauded for its audacity and insight, while provoking sharp controversy over its method, the ethics of giving perpetrators a platform, and the implications for victims and historical accountability.
The Act of Killing situates its inquiry within the governing dynamics of Indonesia in the wake of the 1965 coup attempt and the ensuing anti-communist purges. It intersects with debates about how societies confront periods of mass violence, and what it means to achieve truth and accountability when official narratives have long protected those who carried out atrocities. The film’s reception reflects a broader tension between calls for moral reckoning and concerns about how memory is shaped, who is empowered to tell the story, and how witness accounts are interpreted by audiences around the world. In the years since its release, the work has become a focal point in discussions of transitional justice, memory politics, and the responsibilities of documentary cinema to challenge entrenched power without slipping into sensationalism.
Background
The events at the core of The Act of Killing unfolded during a chaotic, violent realignment in Indonesia following a failed attempt to seize power in the mid-1960s. The period saw a massive campaign against perceived leftists associated with the PKI and related groups, backed by elements of the Indonesian military and civilian networks. In many places, paramilitary units and state-aligned groups orchestrated executions, disappearances, and mass arrests. The scale of the violence is the subject of ongoing historical debate, but it is generally understood to have produced hundreds of thousands of deaths and to have disrupted families and communities for generations. The official memory of these years has often been shaped by a narrative that frames the violence as a necessary stabilization effort against a real or imagined threat to the state.
Within this milieu, certain former participants built social standing on claims of loyalty and effectiveness in suppressing a dangerous movement. The film centers on a handful of such figures who are still respected in some communities, and who, in the documentary, speak openly about their roles and then dramatize those acts in a way that mirrors the forms of entertainment they themselves once consumed or controlled. The juxtaposition of interview and on-camera re-creation illuminates how political power can become personal prestige, and how the theater of violence can become a conduit for justifying past actions without legal consequences. For the purposes of analysis, scholars often connect these narratives to broader questions of state capacity, legitimacy, and the long-term effects of political violence on governance.
Links: Indonesia, 1965 Indonesian coup d'état, Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, PKI, military.
Production and structure
The film employs a distinctive approach: it gives voice to former perpetrators and invites them to perform their memories as if in a studio, with the camera functioning both as witness and judge. These reenactments draw on a spectrum of cinematic genres—ironically including spectacle and melodrama—as the men describe and act out the killings, often with a prideful or evasive tone. In parallel, the documentary includes conversations with survivors and experts who press the participants on questions of responsibility, moral choice, and the consequences of violence for society. The result is less a linear exposé than a provocative examination of how power can normalize cruelty and how memory can be reshaped to protect reputations or to sanctify the past.
The project is intimate in its scope yet expansive in its implications. It raises questions about artistic responsibility, ethical limits in documentary filmmaking, and the role of narrative in shaping national memory. The film’s technique—melding confession, staged violence, and reflective commentary—has influenced subsequent documentary practice and sparked discussions about whether art can or should confront perpetrators in a way that provides communal learning without glamorizing wrongdoing.
Links: Joshua Oppenheimer, documentary film, The Look of Silence (sequel and companion work), Anwar Congo (subject of the film, if referenced in available material).
Themes
At its core, The Act of Killing examines how violence begets power and how power, in turn, sustains impunity. It foregrounds questions about accountability, truth-telling, and the limits of justice after mass violence. The film also probes how communities remember and normalize past atrocities when those who carried them out continue to hold influence in the present. By exposing the performative aspect of the killers’ self-portrayals, the documentary highlights the moral hazards that emerge when state-sanctioned violence is treated as a legitimate tool of governance and when victims and survivors are pushed to the margins of the historical record.
From a broader policy perspective, the work invites consideration of transitional justice mechanisms—such as truth commissions and judicial accountability—as means to reconcile a society with its past without erasing complexity or inflaming resentments. It also touches on the enduring tension between national sovereignty and international moral scrutiny, a perennial topic in debates over how the world ought to respond to histories of mass violence.
Links: transitional justice, truth commission, memory, collective memory, Impunity.
Controversies and debates
The Act of Killing sparked vigorous debate about how to portray violence in documentary form and what responsibilities a filmmaker bears when granting a platform to perpetrators. Critics from various angles questioned whether the film, by allowing its subjects to perform their acts, risks normalizing or glamorizing murder, even as others argued that the performances expose the psychological mechanisms by which violence is sustained and celebrated. Supporters contend that the method lays bare the moral erosion that accompanies impunity and reveals the incentives that kept violence politically useful for decades.
From a pragmatic policy standpoint, some observers argued that the film oversimplifies the historical narrative by centering perpetrators at the center of memory, potentially at the expense of victims and survivors who carry the direct consequences of those years. Others argue that the documentary serves as a crucial indictment of how political leaders, institutions, and social networks can shield violence behind rhetoric of order and anti-extremism. These debates intersect with broader criticisms about how Western audiences interpret Indonesian history and the extent to which foreign commentary should influence national memory and policy.
The discourse around the film also engages with critiques sometimes labeled as “woke” concerns, which argue that Western audiences impose contemporary moral frameworks on past events. Proponents of a more conservative, results-focused reading contend that the film’s value lies in revealing how violence is produced, protected, and rewarded within a political system, and that moral clarity comes from confronting those mechanisms rather than avoiding them for fear of discomfort. They may view calls for victim-centered recomposition of memory as potentially counterproductive to stable governance or national reconciliation if they neglect the full accountability of actors who did harm.
Links: criticism of The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence (discussion of reception), transitional justice.
Legacy and influence
The Act of Killing retains a notable place in discussions of documentary ethics, memory politics, and post-conflict accountability. It contributed to a global reassessment of how societies confront past violence, influencing later debates about how to balance documentary risk with educational value. The film’s provocative approach—placing perpetrators in a position of artistic agency—reframed conversations about responsibility, deterrence, and the moral language of national storytelling. It is frequently paired with Joshua Oppenheimer’s later work, The Look of Silence, which centers on a survivor’s confrontation with the perpetrators and broadens the inquiry into how victims’ voices intersect with public memory and policy reform.
Academically, The Act of Killing has become a touchstone in studies of transitional justice, memory studies, and political psychology. It is cited in discussions of how institutions can deter future violence, how public narratives shape civic trust, and how international audiences interpret histories of oppression. Its reception in Indonesia and abroad illustrates the challenges of narrating mass violence in a way that honors victims while enabling a sober appraisal of the political dynamics that produced such events.
Links: The Look of Silence, Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, transitional justice, memory studies.