Page - 28 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

28 | Lucien van Liere www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 15–34 next eight months. This scene comes very close to what he has identified as the routines of violence that made the massacres possible, the routines through which the ghosts become visible for the director. SCENE 3: OPPENHEIMER AS A PRIEST As noted, Oppenheimer understands his method of filmmaking as archaeologi- cal performance, for he scrutinises the gestures, routines and rituals that were the motor of the massacre as well as the language and genres of its histori- cal account. For this project, designed to make the violence visible in uncanny, ghostly layers, Oppenheimer’s function as man behind the camera is decisive. In the last scene I will discuss, Oppenheimer adopts the role of “priest” when his main character, Congo, pulls him invisibly into the movie. Oppenheimer is a conundrum, Benedict Anderson writes.45 But even as a conundrum, through his “intervention” he leads the movie to a finale in which the ghosts seem to be exorcised from Congo’s body, allowing the public to breathe again. In the end, a humanity does remain. The scene starts when Congo plays a victim. This role reversal seems to be too much for him. (“I can’t do it” 01:39:40). Watching a scene played by himself a few minutes later in the film, Congo shows a moment of empathy for his vic- tims. He asks Oppenheimer whether he has “sinned” (dosa). By taking up a ritu- alised role as victim in his own movie, he could feel, he claimed, what his victims had gone through. At this point the filmmaker intervenes to distinguish sharply between what Congo feels and what his victims felt: they knew that they were going to die, Oppenheimer argues. However, Congo does not seem convinced. The scene breaks through the spectral power of the communist framing and throws light on a point of shared humanity in fear. In the words of Larry Rochter in the New York Times: “eventually, though, the re-enactments appear to lead Mr. Congo to some sort of remorse and moral awakening”.46 Soon after, at the end of the movie, much time is given to showing Congo vomiting. This scene has drawn much discussion. Robert Cribb, for example, notes that it seems staged.47 Indeed, Congo does appear to fake his actions. Yet this does not make the scene less powerful within the film’s soteriological plot. On the contrary, this scene enters a domain beyond the grand narrative of the state, a locus where ghosts appear and violence is remembered – the body. Frankfurt philosopher Theodor W. Adorno has written about the recognisability of humanity under totalitarianism. In a speculative effort to save humanity from 45 Anderson 2012, 284. 46 Rochter 2013. 47 Cribb 2012.