Page - 65 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

Intercultural Perspectives | 65www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 63–77 exact representation of what has taken place is key to a process in which Anwar Congo returns to his past and is almost submerged by his trauma. It seems that for the first time he has realised what he has done. POEMS Both films start with a poem. Das radikal Böse begins with a text by Primo Levi: Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men.2 The Act of Killing starts with words of Voltaire: It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they are in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.3 These poems reveal a difference in perspective. In Das radikal Böse the danger comes from the common man, someone who does not seem to be a monster, which suggests that all of us can be such killers. This film aims to confront us with ourselves. The Act of Killing speaks about the very large number of vic- tims – and also about the enormous number of killers? – whose number makes their prosecution impossible and therefore gives them a sort of protection. This scale is emphasised by the sounding of trumpets, which in Voltaire’s time would have been understood as a reference to army trumpeters. The image conjured up concerns the notion that killing a human being is always murder and there- fore sinful – “it is forbidden to kill” even if the killing is on a large scale and carried out with the support of the people in power. The Act of Killing demon- strates that in the end the perpetrator feels the truth of this. Neither the sup- port of the state nor the scale of the killing can nullify the perpetrator’s actions, which have brought negative karma. FILMIC APPROACHES The difference in approach across the two films is tremendous. Das radikal Böse starts by asking how it was even possible that such ordinary men could 2 Levi 2015, 191. 3 English translation of a statement found in Voltaire 1977.