The Look of Silence -- Indonesia at Venice Film Festival

This year two of Indonesia movies are going to Venice. Short movie by Sidi Saleh and Indie by Joshua Oppenheimer produced by Werner Herzog. I haven't heard about Maryam by Sidi Saleh, but I heard the good news about The Look of Silence. They got standing ovation at Venice. Some of the critics even say it is the top five movie this year. The movie is about Indonesian killing of 1965-1966. It's very sensitive subject for this country, its a documentary movie. I hear it is a sequel Oppenheimer's previews Indonesian movie which got Oscar nom, The Act of Killing. I have watched The Act of Killing and it;'s very good movie. very bad ass and I like it. Not only because its based on my country but because it's good movie. Since it's produced by Werner Herzog he and his team has pushes it into so many festival just like The Act of Killing. I can't wait to watch this movie, they got rave reviews. And hoping many Indonesia film makers will get the Indonesia of doing something like this. I mean we have great film makers. But look at The Raid and The Act of Killing it's Indonesia's sensitive subject. but they made it into everywhere. I read The Look of Silence will have 2015 release, hoping for 2014 US premiere tho so they can push it into Award Season and release it here sooner. Finger cross. I love my country being mentions. And more people want to make people here and about Indonesia. we have amazing history.



anyway people who hasn't watched The Act of Killing this is the trailer

The Look of Silence gets Venice talking, but verdict from Indonesia still pending
As Joshua Oppenheimer’s followup to The Act of Killing unites Venice in praise, the director pays tribute to the bravery of his subject, Adi Rukun, and says he himself can no longer return to Indonesia

Joshua Oppenheimer arrives in Venice for the film festival. Photograph: Venturelli/GC Images

The outside world came to gatecrash the glamour on the opening night of the Venice film festival. In the evening sunshine, local police were summoned to shield the red-carpet arrivals from a boisterous protest by 2,000 public sector workers. Elsewhere, the dignitaries sought shelter in front of The Look of Silence, a stark, unsparing documentary about the Indonesian genocide. The protesters’ air-horns and placards merely pointed the way to the horrors within.
The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow-up to his Bafta-winning The Act of Killing, in which he cajoled elderly killers into memorialising their crimes via a series of self-styled gangster movies and musicals. This time, the director has switched the focus to spotlight the survivors and to honour the dead. He examines the ongoing consequences of Indonesia’s 1965 military coup and shows that its worst offenders remain at large and unpunished.

A still from The Look of Silence

“The military dictatorship is still in power,” Oppenheimer explained. “So much has not changed in Indonesia. We hope the film will help that change.”
Oppenheimer’s film charts the investigation of Adi Rukun, a middle-aged optometrist whose elder brother was killed during his homeland’s purge of supposed communist sympathisers. Rukun goes door-to-door through his family’s rural district, fitting his subjects with corrective lenses and interviewing the guilty. The route leads him from the former leader of the death squad who admits to drinking the blood of his victims to the local politician who boasts that he has never lost an election. Some subjects flinch when confronted with their crimes. Others accuse Rukun of indulging in “communist activity”.

Adi Rukun and Oppenheimer at the press call for The Look of Silence. Photograph: David Azia/AP

“I only wanted the people to admit what they did and acknowledge they were wrong, so that we would somehow be able to forgive each other,” Rukun told reporters in Venice. “We live in a community that is split by mutual suspicion and fear. I really want this to end.” 

Oppenheimer claimed that Rukun risked his own life by appearing on camera. “The film exposes Adi Rukun, who is a man of extraordinary dignity and courage, to grave personal danger,” he said. “To mitigate this risk, his family has now had to move to another part of Indonesia, thousands of miles away.” Most of the film’s Indonesian crew, he added, are not named in the credits: “The crew remain anonymous to protect their own safety.”
Official response to The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer’s previous documentary, has thus far been muted. The director claimed that, having initially ignored it, the authorities were finally forced to make a statement after the film was nominated for an Oscar last January.
“They released an admission that basically said they that what had happened [during the anti-communist purges] was wrong, but that they would deal with it in their own time,” Oppenheimer said. “That was a huge change, even if it was reluctantly done.”
Born in Texas but based in Denmark, Oppenheimer has spent the past 10 years researching the Indonesian genocide. With the completion of The Look of Silence, the director finally feels ready to put the subject behind him. He conceded, however, that the decision was not entirely his to make. He has made too many enemies and rattled too many skeletons. “I’m persona non grata in Indonesia now,” he said. “I know I will no longer be able to return.”
• Full coverage: The Act of Killing