“..The Act of Killing – review..”

“..Joshua Oppenheimer’s surreal, astonishing documentary recreates the atrocities of 1960s Indonesian death squads.

When Werner Herzog says a film is the most frightening and most surreal he’s seen in at least a decade – you know need to steel yourself.

He’s right.

Here’s the best, and the most horrific, movie of this year’s Toronto film festival.

It’s a documentary about the Indonesian death squads of the mid-1960s who tortured and killed communists.

But it’s also a film within a film – as director Joshua Oppenheimer urges the ageing gangsters to recreate their acts on increasingly elaborate scale – (prosthetics, props, drag outfits, soundtrack, location shooting).

They grin and mug just as they also take it very, very seriously.

A strangulation scene is interrupted by the call for evening prayers.

But they return after their ablutions…”

(cont..)

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The Act of Killing – review | Film | guardian.co.uk.

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