In the acclaimed documentary The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer explores the aftereffects of the 1965 genocide in Indonesia.

The Oscar nominated filmmaker throws light on the human condition in a persistent climate of fear and silence caused by the unanswered killings of between 500,000 and 1 million people.  

The murderers have not faced justice for half a century because the political regime still protects them. The camera follows Adi, an Indonesian optometrist, as he confronts the men who murdered his brother Ramli, two years before Adi was born.

There is something comical about the man in optometrist’s glasses. He looks ancient and the glasses are clanky and shiny red, something a child would wear. But there is nothing funny about the old man’s demeanor. A former death squad leader, who helped the army kill 10,500 people at a single clearing on the riverbank of North Sumatra’s Snake River is defiant, unapologetic what he did fifty years ago to “the communists,” poor workers who dared to unionize.

“My neighbors are scared of me. They know they are powerless against me,” he says.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence explores the psyche of those who committed genocide and have gone unpunished. Joshua Oppenheimer, a soft-spoken, intelligent man, tries to relate the environment he encountered over 10 years ago when he was filming Adi’s interviews with his brother’s killers and the killers of tens of thousands of others.

“My God! It’s like I’ve wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust” he says, “if the Nazis have never been removed from power and if the rest of the world had celebrated the Holocaust and participated in it while in took place.”

Oppenheimer shows how – armed with the conviction of the self-righteous hero – the perpetrators celebrate a victor’s mythology that justifies their atrocities. The filmmaker captured their boastful testimonies for the world to watch. The camera follows them down to the river, two old frail men nowadays, recounting with obvious glee and jovial tones details of their grisly killings. They demonstrate how deftly they hacked their victims to pieces while the latter begged for mercy.

“But we don’t care,” says one of the perpetrators. “In fact we beat him to shut him up because his screams could frighten my men.”

“For the vast majority of the survivors there was no confirmation that their loved ones had been killed.” says the filmmaker. “Their loved ones were taken to rivers slaughtered, bodies would drift out to sea and the families were never told what happened and I’ve tried to create this beautiful but haunted space that makes the violence of what happened all the more unbearable.”

Oppenheimer says he felt  that next to the brazenness of the killers of it was crucial to show the world the fear and silence people have had to live with in the area for half a century. Having witnessed Adi’s brother’s death, locals would refer to Ramli as the  example of what happened to their own, tens of thousands missing in the vicinity and at least hundreds of thousands of others throughout Indonesia. Adi grew up listening to his mother talk about Ramli’s death every single day. Her burden and the burden of others became his burden. When he got the chance to conduct these interviews for Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Look of Silence, it was a cathartic experience but, Adi says, it was the most difficult thing he did in his life.

“You have to be face to face and to hide your emotions towards someone, who not only murdered so many people, but also your own family. It was very emotionally draining. After each interview, without Joshua knowing, I would always lock myself away for 30 -45 minutes just to calm myself,” he says.

Adi says he and Oppenheimerwere in constant danger of being arrested, attacked or even killed.

“In every interview we would arrive and leave in different cars, says Adi. “In one instance, [one of the] perpetrators’ son called the police so we ran as quickly as possible.”

Oppenheimer says they had bags packed at all times, ready to leave the country if they sensed danger. He says, at this point, both The Look of Silence and the film he made before it, The Act of Killing, have gotten so much acclaim the world over, neither the Indonesian government not the regional powers can hurt the family without an international  scandal. However, as a safety precaution, the family has been relocated to another part of Indonesia and have visas to Denmark in case they need to flee overnight. Also, they are protected around the clock by a team of bodyguards.

Oppenheimer says The Look of Silence shines a light on systemic corruption and intimidation in Indonesia, and breaks a fifty year old silence about the genocide committed there.

“Those stories are powerful if they are really impactful,” he says. “There is a moment when you watch them when you feel ‘Oh no! Is this what we are as human beings? Is this what we can do to each other? Is this what it would mean to have to live like Adi’s parents in fear and silence for half a century?’ Yes it is.”
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