Friday, 18 October 2013

Response to "The Act of Killing"

              Constantly throughout the film, my doubt about its legitimacy goes in and out. The claim about it being based on true events and that those people were the same ones who did the actual killings seemed to me that it was just a marketing tactic to bring interest for people to watch the film. But as I progress further into the film, it hit me that it may be all true. The comedic side of the movie deflected me from thinking its real from time to time throughout the movie. How they have scenes that makes you laugh right after a scene that makes you feel disturbed brings a layer of surrealism to the film. It makes you not want to believe that its all real that they are having laughs right after talking about how they killed hundreds of people. And chances are, you may have laughed with them during the funny scenes. The film also contains a lot of unusual and weird things that gives you a hard time believing that its true. An out of shape, cross dressing gangster who apparently killed hundreds of people was really hard to believe. It was anything one would imagined a gangster from the 60's look and acts. This film was really successful about showing us what happened in Indonesia during the 60's. This film showed it so well that it just won't make you feel more informed, but it will also make you feel disturbed and horrified about knowing the events.