Page - 16 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

16 | Lucien van Liere www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 15–34 killings in Indonesia in 1965/66, the filmmaker becomes a therapeutic researcher looking for answers to questions about humanity, responsibility and authentic- ity. Through his encouragement of former killers to make a movie about the In- donesian purges, the protagonists become mediators of their own truths, with Oppenheimer, and behind him a global public, as moral researchers. For Oppenheimer, the movie addresses a general issue about what happens if killers are not convicted, when a state of “impunity” – a term he repeatedly mentions – suggests the killings were justified and subjects collective memory to a strategy of forgetting. What Oppenheimer expects to see and hear (his amazement about what happened in Indonesia), what he wishes former killers to express (regret, confrontation) and how he understands the link between a violent past and an adjured present expressed in the gestures, rituals and rou- tines of his protagonists form a soteriological perspective on humanity. My object of study is The Act of Killing, along with Oppenheimer’s effort to restore the humanity of the killers through re-enactment and confronta- tion. I will argue that Oppenheimer believes in a humanity that reveals itself in revulsion at killing. This belief not only leads to the decision to follow former death-squad leader Anwar Congo on his way to “regret”, but also opens up the missionary plot of the movie. The director sees the absent victims still pre- sent as “ghosts”, haunting through the silence, grammar and routines of the killers. The unease created by their presence leads Congo to a “conversion” in front of the camera. For Oppenheimer, an act of killing seems to be a violation of the sacredness of human life. Such an act demands remorse. The discovery of humanity in The Act of Killing is related to this conversion of Congo. The other killers, however, like Adi Zulkadry, do not show any remorse in the film. In following Congo, a clear decision seems to have been made, reflecting a mis- sionary trajectory that leads to an expression of regret as a confession of guilt. Impressive gangster Koto and intellectual former killer Zulkadry drop out of the movie towards the end. Oppenheimer’s film circulates around representations of the banality of killing with impunity and concludes with the conversion of the sinner as an answer to historical pessimism. CONCISE HISTORIC TABLEAUX Although Oppenheimer chooses to neglect the historical frame within which the killings happened and the creation of the killers’ impunity (covered in only a few lines at the beginning of the film), a snapshot of the historical background can explain the atrocity-silencing situation in which Oppenheimer found his sub- jects. The absence of a clear historical context lives up to one of the goals of the movie, namely to understand these killings not only in light of Indonesian politics in particular, but also as a wide-ranging reflection on human nature in general.