Page - 32 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

32 | Lucien van Liere www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 15–34 show no visible repentance and thus do not satisfy a democratic audience. But the very complexity of these men evokes the ghosts of Oppenheimer (“Oh my God”) and they can live happily ever after with their banality of ghosts. These men do not vomit to save the director’s idea of humanity. They are complicated perpetrators who can be found in many post-genocide contexts.58 The Indo- nesian situation however poses a real challenge, for here we must think about what was done from a context in which collective memory has been politically constructed such that it portrays good killers and bad victims. Oppenheimer believes that such a strategy cannot eradicate a fundamental humanity that erupts as the result of the re-enactment of categorical routines as he makes Congo perform his happy ending. But the complicated gangster Koto and the intellectual and rational debater Zulkadry generate the unease integral to the movie. The ghosts Zulkadry claims to have mastered are the ghosts of the audi- ence precisely because they are not feared. Their apparitions are the real chal- lenge of Oppenheimer’s work on the G30S. Amidst this unease, The Act of Kill- ing is a feel-good discursive ritual that tries to expel these ghosts by telling the story of a single redemption. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor W., 1990 [1966], Negative Dialektik, in: Adorno, Theodor W., Gesammelte Schrif- ten 6. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Anderson, Benedict, 2012, Impunity, in: ten Brink, Joram/Oppenheimer, Joshua (eds.), Killer Images, Documentary Film, Memory and the Performance of Violence, London, New York: Wallflower, 268–287. Barnes, Henry, 2013a, Joshua Oppenheimer: You Celebrate Mass Killing So You Don’t Have to Look Yourself in the Mirror, The Guardian, 20 June 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/ jun/20/joshua-oppenheimer-act-of-killing [accessed 1 September 2017]. Barnes, Henry, 2013b, Joshua Oppenheimer on “The Act of Killing” and its Impact in the United States, The Guardian, 19 December 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/19/josh- ua-oppenheimer-act-of-killing [accessed 20 September 2017]. Barnes, Henry, 2017, As if the Nazis Were Still in Power: Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer about “The Look of Silence”, uploaded by kunstundfilm.de, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=i15J1zfJ2xc [accessed 1 September 2017]. Bjerregaard, Mette, 2014, What Indonesians Really Think about “The Act of Killing”, The Guardian, 5 March 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/05/act-of-killing-screening-in-indone- sia [accessed 24 September 2017]. Collins, Randall, 2008, Violence. A Micro-Sociological Theory, Princeton, Oxford: Princeton Univer- sity Press. Cribb, Robert (ed.), 1990, The Indonesian Killings, 1965–1966; Studies from Java and Bali, Clayton: Monash University Publishing. 58 See, for example, Drakulic 2004; Glover 1999; Hatzfeld 2005.