As a companion piece to the devastating 2013 documentary The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence film returns to the same topic as its predecessor — the mass killings in Indonesia that began in 1965 — and the continuing pride the crimes’ perpetrators maintain, believing their actions were justified. The Look of Silence is not an easy film to watch. But its examination of the myriad ways we deceive and blind ourselves to the truth puts it among the century’s most vital movies, illuminating in devastating detail how genocides happen, and how surprisingly simple it is for humans to act with unspeakable cruelty toward one another.
The Look of Silence
A staggering follow-up look at Indonesian genocide (Netflix)
Alissa Wilkinson covered film and culture for Vox. Alissa is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.
”The film does not stab as deeply at the schizoid moral hypocrisy of the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide as its peerless predecessor, but instead offers an extraordinarily poignant, desperately upsetting meditation on the legacy of those killings, and on the bravery required to seek any kind of truth about them.” Jessica Kiang, the Playlist
Release date: July 17, 2015
Streaming on: Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play
Metacritic score: 92 out of 100
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