- Summary: A documentary in which former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass-killings in various cinematic genres.
- Director: Anonymous
- Genre(s): Documentary
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 0 out of 5
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Mar 18, 2013100It's often said of documentaries that they deserve to have as wide an audience as possible. This doesn't deserve; it demands – not for what it says about present-day Indonesia or even about its former horrors. But because almost every frame is astonishing.
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100Presenting a terrifying view of a hidden holocaust and a moral apocalypse in which the most basic humanities have become twisted beyond recognition, The Act of Killing is a towering achievement in filmmaking, documentary or otherwise.
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91Playing make believe with murderers, Oppenheimer risks the possibility of empowering them. However, by humanizing psychopathic behavior, The Act of Killing is unparalleled in its unsettling perspective on the dementias associated with dictatorial extremes.
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80Never before has anyone made a documentary like The Act of Killing, and the filmmakers seem at a loss in terms of how to organize the many threads of what they capture...Still, essential and enraging, The Act of Killing is a film that begs to be seen, then never watched again.