Joshua Oppenheimer: The Look of Silence
Feb 22, 2016

I didn’t know what to expect when I went into the screening for Joshua Oppenheimer’s most recent documentary, The Look of Silence. This documentary examines the massacres that occurred between 1965 and 1966 in Indonesia. These horrific events still affect Indonesian communities today.

This documentary follows one family that lost their son in these killings. Adi, the other son of the family, traveled around his community with Oppenheimer to meet with the men who killed his brother. Seeing Adi talk to the men responsible for his brother’s death gave me a new understanding of what the face of genocide can look like. Once Adi would reveal his identity to these men, they would act as if it was not their fault—as if they had not directly caused or had a hand in his brother’s death. It’s interesting to see how people hide behind their guilt through boasting and never actually admitting that they were involved. We never see documentaries where victims confront their perpetrators. It was a completely different experience for the killers. They had to look at Adi, someone that lives in their village, someone with a family just like theirs, and think, I killed his brother.

It did not just seem like a confrontation between the killers and Adi, but myself and Adi. It became clear throughout the movie that this genocide was partially the fault of America. The United States supported Major General Suharto—the man who began these mass killings. As Oppenheimer writes in The New York Times, “From the very beginning, he enjoyed the full support of the United States.” It is something that we need to face as a country just as the killers in The Look of Silence need to take responsibility for the horrific murders they perpetrated.

After the screening, Oppenheimer let us know about a petition that asks the United States government to release documents surrounding this genocide, you can sign it here:  http://etan.org/action/16lookofsilence.htm 

By Auri, YI Leader