co-producer: ZDF/Arte
Sabine Bubeck-Paaz
associate producer
Heidi Elise Christensen
co-producer
Torstein Grude
associate producer
Maria Kristensen
associate producer
Anne Köhncke
co-producer: DR K
Flemming Hedegaard Larsen
executive producer
André Singer
producer
Signe Byrge Sørensen
associate producer
Joram Ten Brink
co-producer: NRK
Tore Tomter
co-producer
Bjarte Mørner Tveit
co-producer: YLE
Iikka Vehkalahti
co-producer: VPRO
Nathalie Windhorst
Music
Seri Banang
Music
Mana Tahan
Cinematography
Lars Skree
Editor
Nils Pagh Andersen
production manager
Heidi Elise
production manager
Maria Kristensen
sound
Henrik Garnov
foley artist
Martin Lind
motion graphics artist
Emil Thorbjørnsson
assistant colorist (as Joakim Hauge)
Joakim Hauge Vocke
Camera and Electrical Department
Christine Cynn
lyrics
Sakti Alamsyah
co-producer
Kaarle Aho
executive producer
Werner Herzog
Director
Joshua Oppenheimer
Doc Society Support
Production support
Film Details
Runtime: 103 minutes
Format: Feature length film
Through the filmmaker’s work filming perpetrators of the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered – and the identity of the men who killed him. The family’s youngest son asks how he can raise his children in a society where survivors are terrorized into silence, and everybody is terrorized into treating the murderers as heroes. In search of answers, he decides to confront each of the surviving killers involved with his brother’s murder. And thus begins, though cinema, an unprecedented dialogue.
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Subjects
Politics Justice Democracy
Awards & Festivals
Awards
Festival Screenings
Reviews
These two films, The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, are a really unmissable pairing.
The film does not stab as deeply at the schizoid moral hypocrisy of the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide as its peerless predecessor, but offers a poignant, upsetting meditation on the legacy of those killings.
If Killing was a cleverer film and perhaps a more "informative" one (if you want to learn about the Indonesian killings, at least), then Silence is a more gut-wrenching one.
The Look of Silence couldn't possibly equal its predecessor, but it's still a wrenching and unforgettable experience.
In contrast to the sometimes lurid tenor of The Act of Killing, and despite the extremity of its own content, Oppenheimer's follow-up has a calm, contemplative tone.
The stories the perpetrators tell are hideous, but Adi proves to be a calm and unrelenting interrogator, even in the face of direct death threats.
In a way, I wish I'd never seen "The Look of Silence," because now I won't be able to forget it. But that's the point ...
"The Look of Silence" is a simpler work than "The Act of Killing," and a better one.
Mr. Rukun is a quiet man, contemplating his family's tragedy more in sorrow than in anger. But this atmosphere has the effect of making the violence at the film's heart all the more shocking.
It could crawl under your skin. It could crawl into your soul, you almost feel, and lay eggs.
Where to Watch
Watch this film on Hoopla in the U.S
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