Page - 15 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

The Banality of Ghosts | 15www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 15–34 Lucien van Liere The Banality of Ghosts Searching for Humanity with Joshua Oppenheimer in The Act of Killing ABSTRACT In The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, GB/DK/NO/ 2012), Joshua Oppenheimer searches for humanity by assessing the rituals, routines and words of former perpe- trators who participated in the 1965/66 genocide in Medan, Indonesia. This article puts The Act of Killing in the context of Oppenheimer’s writings on film and violence and explores how his film negotiates humanity by working with a missionary para- digm of expressive guilt that serves not only the director but also a critical audience to give a happy ending. KEYWORDS Perpetrators, re-enactment, Indonesian genocide 1965/66, Joshua Oppenheimer, ghosts, archaeological performance BIOGRAPHY Lucien van Liere is Associate Professor at Utrecht University, where he teaches reli- gious studies in the Faculty of Humanities. His academic work explores the relation- ship between religion, representation and violence. He has published on subjects ranging from the Ambon civil war to the place of Islam in secular politics and the fu- ture of religious studies. PRELUDE AND QUESTION For Joshua Oppenheimer cinema is a means and an object of research.1 Movie- making, he asserts, can be understood as a research tool and a research meth- od. In his movie The Act of Killing, which is about the perpetrators of the mass 1 Oppenheimer 2009. DOI: 10.25364/05.4:2018.1.2