Reliving genocide.

• Author: Sibilla, Nick
• Position: Briefly Noted - The Act of Killing - Movie review - Brief article

One million workers, intellectuals, and ethnic Chinese were brutally murdered as "communists" during the 1960s in Indonesia. Decades later, their killers not only have escaped retribution; they are celebrated as heroes.

In The Act of Killing, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer invites these killers to re-enact the torture and massacres they committed and to depict these scenes as they see fit. The resulting film is a surreal and morally confused blend of film noir, musical numbers, rape jokes, and drag.

The killers proudly call themselves preman, Indonesian for gangster. One memorable subplot features a killer...