Forgive, forget and move on...

Senyap (The Look of Silence, Indonesian, documentary; 2014)

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

This well deserved multiple award winning documentary film is actually a follow-up to 2012 'The Act of Killing' by the same director. Both documentaries look at Indonesia's marred history with the handling with supposed communist sympathisers in 1965/66 era. An estimated one million people perished then.

In the former film, the narration was from the perpetrators who carried out the so-called justice of the rulers of the land. In the sequelae, the approach is from the victim's perspective. Adi, an optician, had an elder brother who was killed during those tumultuous times. Adi himself was born about 3 years after the episode. Adi, a father himself of 2 young kids, tries to subtly interview the past militia men who carried out the murders under the guise of offering free optical consultation.
The presentation managed to draw in the emotional aspect of the interviewer (i.e. Adi) through slow long shots and concentrating on facial mannerisms and expressions. The slow laid back photography showing much of the village landscape and the villagers' houses accentuates the nostalgic, pensive and sometimes surreal mood. Adi's parents, a demented almost blind old man and a old lady who attends to her husband's every need live all by themselves in the memory of their past. Adi's father, because of his medical condition, is oblivious to what is happening and has no recollection of his son, his killing or that matter, his own age! Adi's mother, even though bitter about the whole episode, would not rekindle the past but let it be bygones.

What Adi cannot stomach is the fact that his brother's killers are still walking around without an iota of guilt amongst them. Some are even holding important reputable posts and command respect from the community.

Oppenheimer leads another crew to interview two men who had actually killed Ady's brother personally. They go on to describe the gory details of their actions, slowly disembowelling and mutilating his genitals. These perpetrators did not exhibit any remorse of their action. They, in fact, feel proud for being there to protect the country from the tyranny of communism. They took great pride in demonstrating their prowess in slaughtering communist insurgents 50 years previously. To them, communism is godless belief and it was bad. They were told by their leaders that the communists were bad, so they must be bad. Asked on the morality of their acts, they just shudder and were emphatic that what they did was correct at that time.

The irony of all is that the ex-vigilantes are now pious family people who utter godly words in their every sentence. There was an ex-member who genuinely felt remorseful of the whole event and took the courage to apologise unabashedly to the grieved family. The majority of them were quite defensive and refuse to admit any wrong doings on their part.

As it had been often told, we, the human race, are a bunch of rash unthinking species. At the drop of provocation, with the element of doubt when we feel our comfort zone is threatened, we recoil into defensive mode. The devil in us take charge and the worst of the primal animal behaviour surfaces. As always when the climax of violence and destruction is complete, only then our godly inner eyes open. We come to our senses, we try to clear the slate, forgive, forget and move on. We console ourselves that we are weak and we err and to forgive is divine that revenge would leave everyone dead!