Online Response 2 - Genocide and War

Night and Fog (1956) documents the horrors of the Holocaust in brutally honest way. One of the most infamous atrocities in history, the director, Alain Resnais, shows it in full detail. The somber narrator immediately sets a reflective tone as the camera glides of the now grass covered yards of Nazi concentration camps. The almost peaceful images betray the nauseating depictions to come. Mounds of emaciated corpses, severed heads in a row next to a pile of their body counterparts, smoldering bones, and skeletal survivors. During this war, humans went farther into the realms of the unspeakable and damnable than they possibly ever had before. The cruelest thoughts were acted upon; the unthinkable became the reality of millions.  

The Act of Killing (2012) directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, is a chilling and rather sickening investigation of the genocide in Indonesia during the 1960s. The documentary features several of the perpetrators of the heinous acts, following one man in particular, Anwar Congo. After the overthrow of the governing party and other political upheavals, power was grabbed by those that had the strength to maintain it. Paramilitary groups and gangsters became the decision makers in the country. Their decision was to wipe out communism and anyone even possibly connected to it. This included those who found their ancestral roots in a country professing communism, namely Chinese people. Anwar assisted in the communist elimination, personally killing about 1,000 people. Across all of Indonesia, more than 1 million people were killed. In a country ravaged by war, the strong preyed on the weak resulting in one of the world’s most horrific genocides. 

Both films depict harsh realities of war and genocide, however, each presents the topics in distinct ways. Night and Fog is offered as an omniscient narration, detailing widely known facts accompanied by arresting images. The narrator wastes no time in making it clear that this is a dismal story of evil acts. Although the audience is left feeling the weight of the subject, it is impersonal; Resnais focuses on the masses, on the big events, on the way history books remember the Holocaust. We can feel horror, but it is more challenging to feel sympathy perhaps. In The Act of Killing Oppenheimer lets the characters speak for themselves. They tell the story of their own atrocious acts. It gives the viewer an uncomfortable personal interaction with the very people that committed the murders. What is most striking is that Anwar and his other gangster friends, almost seem to remember the events with pride, and possibly even humor. The audience is left feeling appalled at the lack of conscious and inhumanity of the men. By the end of the film however, the message is clear, the act of killing eventually condemns the doer. Anwar is shown in one of the last scenes retching for several uninterrupted minutes at the site of many of his murders. Both films denounce the perpetrators of genocide, but each in a different way. Night and Fog restates the historically accepted judgement of the Holocaust, but The Act of Killing lets the audience arrive at their own conclusion while the participants judge themselves.