Prepare yourself for The Act of Killing. For two hours you will keep the company of men who shrug off torture, laugh at rape, and consider murder as fodder for interesting anecdotes.

Indonesia, post the killings of the 1960s. Gangsters are the bullets in the government’s gun; still drunk on the grape of power, they see themselves as mythical heroes; the kind of Goodfellas found in Scorsese flicks.

Oppenheimer’s examination of a genocide, using only the eyes, ears and tongues of its perpetrators, is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. This is more than a documentary; it’s a startling revelation.

Soaked in blood and haunted by ghosts, The Act of Killing is not an easy watch at all. But it is an incredibly rewarding one; this truly is cinema at its most important.

RATING: 4/5

INFORMATION

DIRECTOR: Joshua Oppenheimer 

SYNOPSIS: Simultaneously a documentary analysing the Indonesian Killings of 1965/66 , and a Behind The Scenes feature of members of the death squads reenacting their murders for the purposes of a film.