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The Act of Killing

353 statements
69 feature instances
6 referencing feature instances

The Act of Killing	type	TVTItem
The Act of Killing	label	The Act of Killing
The Act of Killing	page	TheActOfKilling
The Act of Killing	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The Act of Killing (Indonesian: Jagal, "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar Congo and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands.Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, and they are happy to boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide, with total impunity.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Anwar and his friends claimed to have been inspired by the violent American films they watched growing up, and so the filmmakers challenged Anwar and his friends to develop fiction scenes about their experience of the killings, adapted to their favorite genres – gangster, western, musical. They write the scripts. They play themselves. And they play their victims.The documentary and its companion piece The Look of Silence can be viewed on YouTube, albeit in unsubtitled Indonesian.note Since most of the people in it speak with a heavy North Sumatran dialect, even Indonesian speakers can find it challenging to understand at times.
The Act of Killing	fetched	2023-01-20T07:46:16Z
The Act of Killing	parsed	2023-01-20T07:46:16Z
The Act of Killing	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Act of Killing / int_11e0d645	type	Arc Symbol
The Act of Killing / int_11e0d645	comment	Arc Symbol: The dilapidated fish statue seen in the page image, which is used as something of a visual refrain throughout the film.
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The Act of Killing / int_137f2d7	type	Card-Carrying Villain
The Act of Killing / int_137f2d7	comment	The notion of a nation overrun with Card-Carrying Villains is how the movie got started in the first place. In 2001, Oppenheimer originally set out to film a traditional documentary centered on the survivors, and was bemused when one suggested he interview one of the perpetrators instead.
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The Act of Killing / int_14b85a5f	type	Fat Idiot
The Act of Killing / int_14b85a5f	comment	Fat Idiot: Herman is not shown to be very smart, and basically serves as the film's Plucky Comic Relief.
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The Act of Killing / int_17501df2	type	Cool Old Guy
The Act of Killing / int_17501df2	comment	If you didn't know what he did, you'd think of Anwar as a Cool Old Guy with some eccentric habits. Critics compared this to Hannah Arendt's concept of the Banality of Evil.
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The Act of Killing / int_196ccd94	type	NeighborhoodFriendlyGangsters
The Act of Killing / int_196ccd94	comment	Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: Deconstructed when the cameras follow a Pemuda Pancasila leader on a shakedown. While the gangs and paramilitary organizations try to present themselves as this, everyone knows exactly what they really are, and are terrified of them.
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The Act of Killing / int_19851b86	type	The Sociopath
The Act of Killing / int_19851b86	comment	The Sociopath: Adi is fully aware that what he did was pure evil, he just doesn't care.
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The Act of Killing / int_1e7159cf	type	Propaganda Machine
The Act of Killing / int_1e7159cf	comment	Propaganda Machine: As head of the local newspaper, Ibrahim Sinik's sole job was to make people hate communists as much as possible. He also admits to presiding over interrogations where he knowingly twisted answers to send innocent people to their deaths.
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The Act of Killing / int_20860a0e	type	Punch-Clock Villain
The Act of Killing / int_20860a0e	comment	Punch-Clock Villain: Subverted. The preman offer many explanations for their actions, but outright excuses are lacking, and "I was just following orders" is not one of them.
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The Act of Killing / int_21d70919	type	Crapsack World
The Act of Killing / int_21d70919	comment	Crapsack World: Indonesia is portrayed as one. Oppenheimer has stated in interviews that while this was not his intention (and the country has indeed undergone significant reforms in the past couple of decades), the right-wing paramilitary and criminal outfits brought into power by the New Order kleptocracy are still deeply rooted within the society, and the whitewashing of their past crimes is a very real problem.
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The Act of Killing / int_237404cc	type	Ironic Echo
The Act of Killing / int_237404cc	comment	Ironic Echo: The very end of the film has Anwar return to a rooftop seen near the beginning. The first time, in the bright of day and accompanied by his neighbor, he happily described the method by which he executed prisoners in that very spot. The second time, at night and alone, he breaks down and starts gagging.
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The Act of Killing / int_24321e44	type	Only Sane Man
The Act of Killing / int_24321e44	comment	Only Sane Man: Adi is the only death squad member who sees through the propaganda and realizes that what he did was evil. He doesn't care.
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The Act of Killing / int_25dc6ef5	type	Apathetic Citizens
The Act of Killing / int_25dc6ef5	comment	Apathetic Citizens: By 2012, nobody in Indonesia, or at least the Medanese electorate, really cares about political ideas, policies, or even candidates' backgrounds. Give them a free t-shirt or a wad of cash, however...
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The Act of Killing / int_267ce120	type	Dirty Old Man
The Act of Killing / int_267ce120	comment	Dirty Old Man: A particularly ghastly instance of this is seen with the gangsters who fondly recollect raping Gerwani members (many of whom were teenagers) during the genocide.
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The Act of Killing / int_26fb2f9e	type	Past Experience Nightmare
The Act of Killing / int_26fb2f9e	comment	Past Experience Nightmare: Anwar has recurring nightmares about the killings he committed.
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The Act of Killing / int_28f852ea	type	Wholesome Crossdresser
The Act of Killing / int_28f852ea	comment	Wholesome Crossdresser: Herman Koto can hardly be described as a "wholesome" man, but an inordinate number of the gang members' scenes require him to dress up as a woman.
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The Act of Killing / int_2a3006e5	type	State Sec
The Act of Killing / int_2a3006e5	comment	State Sec: The Pemuda Pancasila paramilitary group is one part this, one part organized crime, and one part Right-Wing Militia Fanatic. In fact, right-wing paramilitary groups (of both secular nationalist and religious varieties) became the military's main instrument of terror during the killings, and many of them retain high-level political and military ties well after the Reformation. Their lingering presence across Indonesia was one of the reasons for the clandestine nature of the movie's production process.
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The Act of Killing / int_2e6a41e0	type	Gratuitous English
The Act of Killing / int_2e6a41e0	comment	"The word Gangsternote Preman comes from Free Men."
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The Act of Killing / int_33029735	type	Dies Wide Open
The Act of Killing / int_33029735	comment	Dies Wide Open: Anwar recounts being haunted by nightmares about the wide, staring eyes of a man he decapitated.
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The Act of Killing / int_45cd286c	type	Corrupt Politician
The Act of Killing / int_45cd286c	comment	Corrupt Politician: According to Herman, all of them. Many government higher-ups are associated with the Pancasila Youth - Jusuf Kalla, the Vice-President of Indonesia from 2004 to 2009, appears in the film to openly laud the Youth leadership. (Even with the election of Joko Widodo in 2014 supposedly marking the end of the last remnants of Suharto's reign, he openly backs the Pancasila Youth◊, and brought back Kalla as vice-president.) Koto himself admits to running for an election to the local legislature specifically so that he can get on the Building Commission and extort whole neighborhoods out of thousands of dollars per. He doesn't win - but more because he didn't have enough money with which to bribe voters, especially in contrast to the wildly popular Golkar party, which enjoys the backing of the Pancasila Youth and can pay thousands just to be part of the crowd at rallies. A provincial MP talks plainly about the variety of illegal businesses and he and his paramilitary allies are involved in.
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The Act of Killing / int_479d4e5a	type	Would Hurt a Child
The Act of Killing / int_479d4e5a	comment	Would Hurt a Child: One of the scenes the gang reenacts is a woman offering her daughter to Anwar in exchange for her life, only for Anwar to be offended and mutilate the child in response. While the "woman" is Herman and the "child" is just a stuffed doll, Anwar acts it with intensity that could only come from experience.
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The Act of Killing / int_47fea76b	type	Butt-Monkey
The Act of Killing / int_47fea76b	comment	Butt-Monkey: The other Pancasila guys constantly make fun of Herman for his weight, and trick him into running a fraudulent election campaign as a joke. Anwar talks down to him too, telling him he's not a "real artist" while filming their movie.
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The Act of Killing / int_4c851777	type	Black Comedy Rape
The Act of Killing / int_4c851777	comment	Black Comedy Rape: For the militia and only for them. One of the groups targeted during the killing was Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian Women's Movement), a left-leaning feminist group with some communist ties. When the Pancasila Youth members show up to help the death squad vets with their film shoot, they joke about taking advantage of tied-up Gerwani activists and remark that "the 14-15 years old ones are the best".
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The Act of Killing / int_51300dbf	type	Fat Bastard
The Act of Killing / int_51300dbf	comment	Fat Bastard: Herman Koto is a portly paramilitary officer. There's also Corrupt Politician Syamsul Arifin, whom Anwar describes as "ball shaped".
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The Act of Killing / int_537dd8fe	type	Affably Evil
The Act of Killing / int_537dd8fe	comment	Affably Evil: If you didn't know what he did, you'd think of Anwar as a Cool Old Guy with some eccentric habits. Critics compared this to Hannah Arendt's concept of the Banality of Evil. Off-screen, the killers developed a cordial relationship with the crew over the course of several years, and kept in touch with them after the movie came out. One of the younger paramilitary leaders depicted, Herman Koto, even organised a screening in the city of Medan.
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The Act of Killing / int_54367e5d	type	Mathematician's Answer
The Act of Killing / int_54367e5d	comment	Mathematician's Answer: When Oppenheimer asks Pancasila commander Yapto Soerjosoemarno about the genocide.
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The Act of Killing / int_5963b221	type	Eviler than Thou
The Act of Killing / int_5963b221	comment	Eviler than Thou: Discussed at one point. In 1984, the New Order government released the propaganda film Pengkhianatan G-30S/PKI, which shows communist rebels kidnapping members of the Army staff and gruesomely torturing them to death. When Oppenheimer asks two death squad members about their opinion of the film, they reply that they find its depiction of ritual torture unrealistic, as they personally preferred to hack through their victims dozens at a time without much fanfare.
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The Act of Killing / int_5f146203	type	Dissonant Serenity
The Act of Killing / int_5f146203	comment	Dissonant Serenity: Anwar fondly recalls executing some of his victims by placing a table leg over their neck and then having all his men sit on top of the table, joyously singing showtunes as their weight slowly forces the table leg down through the victim's throat.
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The Act of Killing / int_63d861f8	type	Even Evil Has Loved Ones
The Act of Killing / int_63d861f8	comment	Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Anwar and Herman both have children and grandchildren that they dote on.
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The Act of Killing / int_652bf890	type	Drone of Dread
The Act of Killing / int_652bf890	comment	Drone of Dread: The only non-diegetic sound in the film is a faint, eerie drone that plays over some of the more intense and surreal sequences and Andy Williams' "Born Free", for which Anwar and Herman make a music video that depicts one of their victims thanking the former for "sending him to heaven".
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The Act of Killing / int_658f7193	type	Lack of Empathy
The Act of Killing / int_658f7193	comment	Lack of Empathy: Adi in general. Anwar starts as this, but slowly realizes the enormity of what he's done throughout the film.
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The Act of Killing / int_69fb91e8	type	Chewing the Scenery
The Act of Killing / int_69fb91e8	comment	Chewing the Scenery: Herman tends to ham it up whenever he's in front of the camera, especially when he's tormenting Anwar's character.
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The Act of Killing / int_729c69f3	type	Politically Incorrect Villain
The Act of Killing / int_729c69f3	comment	Politically Incorrect Villain: The Pancasila members are all quite racist and sexist, particularly against Chinese people. Safit specifically goes out of his way to intimidate and extort Chinese shopkeepers because he knows they're more vulnerable, and Anwar reminisces on how he and his comrades would shake down Chinese people for all their money and kill them if they refused to pay up. They also make frequent misogynistic comments and even fantasize about raping teenage girls. Safit and Ibrahim make fun of Anwar for looking "like he's from Ethiopia" at one point.
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The Act of Killing / int_72e54916	type	Retired Monster
The Act of Killing / int_72e54916	comment	Retired Monster: Anwar and his fellow death squad leaders.
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The Act of Killing / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
The Act of Killing / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: A few. "The word Gangsternote Preman comes from Free Men." "This is history." "Exterminate them down to the roots!"
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The Act of Killing / int_7f08fec3	type	The Fashionista
The Act of Killing / int_7f08fec3	comment	The Fashionista: Anwar is a snappy dresser, and repeatedly shown to be quite vain. Herman attempts to be this in drag.
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The Act of Killing / int_7febc23b	type	Establishing Character Moment
The Act of Killing / int_7febc23b	comment	Establishing Character Moment: A bizarre and unintentional example. As he's first seen getting off the plane, Adi Zulkadry is seen wearing a shirt showing the literal dictionary definition of "Apathetic". Later on, Adi is shown to be fully aware of the moral ramifications of his actions, but indifferent to them. Oppenheimer opines in the DVD commentary that it's one of the many details in the film that's too bizarre to be fictional.
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The Act of Killing / int_86968c96	type	Above Good and Evil
The Act of Killing / int_86968c96	comment	Above Good and Evil: Adi seems to think of himself this way, arguing that there's no real "right" or "wrong" since history is Written by the Victors, and he thinks of himself as a victor.
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The Act of Killing / int_87bb6874	type	Villain with Good Publicity
The Act of Killing / int_87bb6874	comment	Villain with Good Publicity: The gangsters are officially treated as heroes, at one point even appearing on a talk show celebrating their actions. The producers of said talk show are shown to be disgusted with what they're being made to air.
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The Act of Killing / int_898ff050	type	Villain Protagonist
The Act of Killing / int_898ff050	comment	Villain Protagonist: Anwar, although he doesn't see it that way.
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The Act of Killing / int_957e5fc2	type	Villainous Breakdown
The Act of Killing / int_957e5fc2	comment	Villainous Breakdown: Towards the end of the movie, Anwar starts to realize just how heinous the actions he committed truly were.
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The Act of Killing / int_9591377d	type	Heel Realization
The Act of Killing / int_9591377d	comment	Heel Realization: The entire film is the process of getting Anwar to have one of these. Subverted with Adi, who had his a long time ago, but is completely unbothered by it.
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The Act of Killing / int_95b7c400	type	Faux Affably Evil
The Act of Killing / int_95b7c400	comment	Faux Affably Evil: Safit Pardede smiles genially as he extorts Chinese shopkeepers under the threat of violence. The other death squad members comes across as genuinely Affably Evil, at least around Oppenheimer.
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The Act of Killing / int_973d220f	type	Never My Fault
The Act of Killing / int_973d220f	comment	Never My Fault: A recurring theme is the killers' constant attempts to deflect responsibility for their actions. After he reenacts mutilating and killing a little girl in front of her mother, Anwar, in character, tries to argue that the mother is the "real barbarian" for offering her child to him to begin with, justifying his Disproportionate Retribution.
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The Act of Killing / int_9ae0ead1	type	Villains Out Shopping
The Act of Killing / int_9ae0ead1	comment	Villains Out Shopping: Half the film is Anwar and his friends doing mundane things like going to the dentist and playing with their children.
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The Act of Killing / int_9d27a8be	type	Army of Thieves and Whores
The Act of Killing / int_9d27a8be	comment	Army of Thieves and Whores: The Pancasila Youth are deeply involved in almost all the organized crime in Indonesia.
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The Act of Killing / int_9e776765	type	Churchgoing Villain
The Act of Killing / int_9e776765	comment	Churchgoing Villain: Immediately after the Pancasila Youth's current leader, the proudly murderous Yapto Soerjosoemarno, has a very uncouth chat about fellatio, he's shown joining his subordinates in prayer to God.
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The Act of Killing / int_9fb2452d	type	Evil Is Not a Toy
The Act of Killing / int_9fb2452d	comment	Evil Is Not a Toy: When the military government hired gangsters to do their dirty work, they probably were not expecting that the gangsters would end up becoming part of the government. Possibly subverted in that while members of the paramilitary networks did end up in high positions, their organisations remain under military and police control to this day.
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The Act of Killing / int_a1b141f4	type	My God, What Have I Done?
The Act of Killing / int_a1b141f4	comment	My God, What Have I Done?: At the end of the film, Anwar watches footage filmed earlier in which he plays one of his own victims during an interrogation and execution. He then asks, "Did the people I tortured feel what I felt? Have I sinned?" When Oppenheimer tells him that his victims actually felt worse, the look on his face says it all.
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The Act of Killing / int_a3a8cdc	type	Black Shirt
The Act of Killing / int_a3a8cdc	comment	Black Shirt: The Pancasila Youth militia movement, the organization behind many of the killings. They were formed in 1959 and hold significant power to this day, numbering 3 to 9 million strong. They even have a theme color (orange), which they famously dress in.
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The Act of Killing / int_abc60c5d	type	Harmful to Minors
The Act of Killing / int_abc60c5d	comment	Harmful to Minors: Indonesian schoolchildren are made to watch gory propaganda films about communists torturing people to death to traumatize them into supporting the purges.
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The Act of Killing / int_b2af79fb	type	Leave the Camera Running
The Act of Killing / int_b2af79fb	comment	Leave the Camera Running: There are many silent, lingering shots of scenery and people's faces.
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The Act of Killing / int_b47d95be	type	No OSHA Compliance
The Act of Killing / int_b47d95be	comment	No OSHA Compliance: Some of the killers' torture re-enactments are a bit too realistic for comfort. The big outdoor shoot at the plantation towards the end of the movie is also filmed without safety precautions, and clearly traumatises some of the extras.
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The Act of Killing / int_ba6cf869	type	Rape, Pillage, and Burn
The Act of Killing / int_ba6cf869	comment	Rape, Pillage, and Burn: The filmmakers reenact a village massacre using real villagers and Pancasila Youth members at one point. It gets uncomfortably real before Anwar tells them to stop. Before the cameras start rolling, Safit is actually seen fantasizing about raping every woman he comes across, particularly relishing the thought of raping a 14 year old.
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The Act of Killing / int_c222c94f	type	Hiding Behind Religion
The Act of Killing / int_c222c94f	comment	Hiding Behind Religion: Even disregarding the fact that he treats his participation in mass slaughter as just another part of his life, Yapto is an immensely lewd man who prays to God with his fellows at a Pancasila Youth meeting after chatting about oral sex.
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The Act of Killing / int_c2288824	type	A Nazi by Any Other Name
The Act of Killing / int_c2288824	comment	A Nazi by Any Other Name: While they don't describe themselves as such, the Pancasila Youth are fascists in all but name. Beyond being boorish and violent extremists, they're bigoted towards women and ethnic minorities like the Chinese Indonesians. It's doubly ironic that they're named after Sukarno's "Pancasila" philosophy, given that he was a left-wing nationalist and a steadfast ally of the communists.
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The Act of Killing / int_d41832cc	type	Written by the Winners
The Act of Killing / int_d41832cc	comment	Written by the Winners: Repeatedly discussed, largely by Adi. On a meta level, the film itself is an attempt to deconstruct this.
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The Act of Killing / int_d45c0b86	type	Refuge in Audacity
The Act of Killing / int_d45c0b86	comment	Refuge in Audacity: A meta example. Oppenheimer and his crew initially approached the aging death squad members with caution, but after they started landing interviews with several high-ranking government officials with right-wing paramilitary ties, the hitmen mistook it as an endorsement from their "bosses" and started to cheerfully open up about their past crimes in loving details. Now that the movie is out, the ruse is up, and Oppenheimer has mentioned in interviews that bringing a spotlight onto a group of mass murderers with such extensive criminal ties means that he probably won't be able to return to Indonesia safely for a long time. Most of the local crewmembers are uncredited for the same reason.
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The Act of Killing / int_db38d6ca	type	Torture Technician
The Act of Killing / int_db38d6ca	comment	Torture Technician: Execution technician at least. Realizing how inefficient it was to simply beat each of his victims to death, Anwar devised a system where people would be brought into an execution chamber, tied to a pipe, and then strangled to death with a wire noose before being dragged out in a sack like they're on an assembly line. He admits to killing hundreds of people this way.
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The Act of Killing / int_e128d4fb	type	Acceptable Targets
The Act of Killing / int_e128d4fb	comment	Acceptable Targets: invoked The killers consider communists to be this.
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The Act of Killing / int_e1acc872	type	From Nobody to Nightmare
The Act of Killing / int_e1acc872	comment	From Nobody to Nightmare: Anwar and his crew started out as street thugs making quick bucks by scalping movie tickets in Medan. He ended up a fairly well-off local hero with a multitude of high-level political and business ties through the simple act of torturing and butchering thousands of suspected communists, the vast majority of them likely innocent.
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The Act of Killing / int_e21e21be	type	Red and Black and Evil All Over
The Act of Killing / int_e21e21be	comment	Red and Black and Evil All Over: Almost. The Pancasila Youth's fatigues are colored black and bright orange, clearly intended to emulate tiger stripes.
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The Act of Killing / int_e52a0cac	type	He Who Must Not Be Seen
The Act of Killing / int_e52a0cac	comment	He Who Must Not Be Seen: Oppenheimer can be heard interviewing the subjects in lightly-accented Indonesian in some scenes, but he's never actually in the frame.
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The Act of Killing / int_ecc8b108	type	Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!
The Act of Killing / int_ecc8b108	comment	Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: The attitude of the gangsters is summed up as "Relax and Rolex".
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The Act of Killing / int_f98356f	type	Right-Wing Militia Fanatic
The Act of Killing / int_f98356f	comment	Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The Pancasila Youth are a massive and powerful fascist paramilitary organization. In their heyday they were a full on State Sec, but the reforms have somewhat reduced their power to merely being this.
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The Act of Killing / int_fa9cd4db	type	Democracy Is Bad
The Act of Killing / int_fa9cd4db	comment	Democracy Is Bad: Pancasila leader Yapto offers this opinion when Joshua interviews him.
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The Act of Killing / int_fb739a16	type	Not Even Bothering with an Excuse
The Act of Killing / int_fb739a16	comment	Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Whereas each of the charged at the Nuremberg Trials would at least try to present themselves as a Punch-Clock Villain, almost none of the Pancasila Youth interviewees offer more than halfhearted excuses (at least to Oppenheimer) for their actions, or try to hide it. The notion of a nation overrun with Card-Carrying Villains is how the movie got started in the first place. In 2001, Oppenheimer originally set out to film a traditional documentary centered on the survivors, and was bemused when one suggested he interview one of the perpetrators instead.
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The Act of Killing / int_fe64d5a1	type	Evil Is Petty
The Act of Killing / int_fe64d5a1	comment	Evil Is Petty: Even among the other genocidaires, Ibrahim Sinik comes across as intensely petty and vain, insulting the other death squad members as soon as they're out of earshot and attempting to claim credit for all the killings himself.
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The Act of Killing / int_ff7f34c5	type	Pet the Dog
The Act of Killing / int_ff7f34c5	comment	Pet the Dog: Anwar is seen scolding his grandsons for injuring a duckling and instructing them on how to take care of it at one point.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster! / int_438f71d2
The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Films of 2010â€“2014 / int_438f71d2
The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Indonesian Media / int_438f71d2
The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters / int_438f71d2
The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Retired Monster / int_438f71d2
The Act of Killing	hasFeature	Written by the Winners / int_438f71d2

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