The Look of Silence

The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.

 

“So singular a high-wire achievement is The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer’s blistering 2012 documentary about the Indonesian communist purge of the 1960s, that following it up so shortly with a second film on the subject might seem complacent on paper. There are as few safe moves as there are false notes, however, in The Look of Silence, an altogether stunning companion piece that shifts its emphasis from the perpetrators of the atrocity to their victims, all the while maintaining its predecessor’s ornate moral complexities, keen sociological shading and occasional, devastating jabs of humor.” – Guy Lodge, Variety (2014)