Muziek:
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In de jaren zestig verkopen de Indonesische Anwar Congo en zijn vrienden bioscoopkaarten op de zwarte markt. Zij spiegelen zich aan hun schietgrage helden uit Hollywood en wanen zich gangsters net als zij. Als het Indonesische leger in 1965 een militaire coup pleegt, verandert het leven van Anwar en zijn vrienden compleet. Voorheen kleine gangsters, na de coup leiders van doodseskaders. In opdracht van het leger vermoorden zij meer dan een miljoen vermeende communisten, etnische Chinezen en intellectuelen in minder dan een jaar tijd. Als beul van een van de meest gevreesde doodseskaders in zijn stad vermoordt Anwar zelf alleen al honderden mensen met zijn eigen handen. Nu, 37 jaar later, zijn Anwar en zijn vrienden nog niet voor hun daden berecht. (Cinéart Nederland)
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The sixties in Indonesia and their own peculiar solution to the threat of communism. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs... A mirror to a democratic society that partially emerged in consequence of the murder of hundreds of thousands, held in the hand of an entertaining old man enjoying life to the full, an exemplary grandpa, a national hero and also, just by the way, one of the high-ranking executors of the aforementioned slaughter? The horrors of the past that formed history may be presented variously. As a stark list of the horrors, as a portrait of those actively involved and maybe in a couple of other ways. If you are lucky, you can even get some of the culprits in front of the camera. But you probably won’t be so lucky that the culprits will want to actively cooperate to such an extent that they agree to re-enact the horrors that they committed because they feel that the young are no longer aware of what they did for their country and want their heroic acts to leave a mark behind them. And that when preparing for filming they start talking about “how they saw things then and how they see them now". At the strongest moments (and there are lots of them) it is powerful, fascinating and chilling like nothing before; however, it is an indisputable problem that this extraordinary documentary is presented in a form that prevents cutting too deep and getting the best out of it. On the contrary, there is a danger that as a result of its rather exhausting two-hour length, the uninspiring form and the talking heads syndrome, this will bore audiences to tears (if they don’t fall asleep). And that would be a shame if only because the authors gave you a good tip for where to send some of our Communist Party dinosaurs for “re-education".
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At times you will feel that this is all staged, that it just couldn't happen. That makes this documentary all the more powerful because it all happened. The people here are totally at ease talking about how they killed innocents, simply because the regime changed, or nobody wanted communists in Indonesia. The protagonists recall real events - torture and killing - and laugh about it. You'll get chills. This is also because of the way the film is presented. The camera captures the former killers and their conversation as if it were two mothers talking in a park. They are showing off and maybe even realizing towards the end what they did. Or maybe not. But the viewer will definitely leave the film with the feeling that the world is a slightly worse place once more. Not because natural disasters are destroying us, but because we love to destroy ourselves. A very scary testimony.
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