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BS: Murders of Gonzago
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BS: Murders of Gonzago |
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Subject: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: GUEST,Ed T Date: 10 Jul 13 - 09:30 PM ""Is it possible to kill 1 million people and then forget about it? Or if it has been erased from consciousness, is there an unconscious residue, a stain that remains? Josh Oppenheimer's film The Act of Killing is an examination of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66, in which between 500,000 and 1 million people died. The Act of Killing is truly unlike any other documentary film. He identified several of the killers from 1965 and convinced them to make a movie about the killings. But the film is even weirder than that. Oppenheimer convinced these killers to act in a movie about the making of a movie about the killings...Oppenheimer had said that the killings were facilitated by the USA State Department and the CIA. Was this true?"" Mass killings in Indonesia |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jul 13 - 08:38 AM IMDb entry on the film. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 11 Jul 13 - 09:04 PM Forgotten in the USA perhaps... Echoes of Robert Harris's book Fatherland. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: Bill D Date: 13 Jul 13 - 04:26 PM There have been so many mass killings, purges, 'holocausts' just in the last century that it numbs the mind to try to absorb the scope of it all. Indonesia was low on the list of awareness for the West. Hitler & Stalin has better 'press' because we were closely engaged... Cambodia was 'close' to our sphere of interest... the Congo, not quite so much. Because the murders in Indonesia were, even in the words of the 'killers' often random and with no clear conflict or political event... they were just not 'on the radar'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 13 Jul 13 - 08:03 PM If they were ignored in the US that was not accidental. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Jul 13 - 08:13 PM Chomsky pointed out not long after the Suharto genocide that on the CIA's own figures the Indonesian right killed far more people than the Khmer Rouge. He also pointed out the disparity in the coverage each got from the establishment media - a disparity which continues to the present day. He got ignored, of course. But his example does show that being an American does not automatically imply being pig-ignorant about the rest of the world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: Bill D Date: 13 Jul 13 - 10:20 PM "If they were ignored in the US that was not accidental." ??? And YOU know this how, Mr. McGrath? "... being an American does not automatically imply being pig-ignorant about the rest of the world." Oh...THANK you. We are not 'automatically' pig-ignorant. God, some of you Brits wield a broad brush...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: GUEST,Stim Date: 13 Jul 13 - 10:42 PM This is a very interesting, although very long, documentary--the big problem with it is that it doesn't give any background, and, given that most people know very little about Indonesian politics or history,it's really hard to make much sense out of it-- The events described in this documentary actually immediately followed the events that were portrayed in "The Year of Living Dangerously"--which is to say, there was an attempted coupe in 1965 against Sukarno's Indonesian Gov't --which was a very tense coalition that consisted of the military, the Communists, and political Islamists. The Communists had been growing in power and influence since the end of WWII, which was a great concern to the military and the Islamists, as well as the British and U.S. govts. It isn't really clear who coordinated the attempted coupe, but a group of military led by Suharto blamed it on the Communists, and used it as an excuse to gather and summarily execute Communists leaders-he also used it to get rid of Sukarno. It wasn't long before there were there were massive reprisals against Communists, Chinese,and a lot of others. They were initiated by the military and the Islamists, but it seems to have evolved into a hysterical and uncontrolled bloodbath. Until very recently, neither the Indonesian gov't or any one else was much interested in documenting it...this film is one of the first steps. Time presented the following account on 17 December 1966 : Communists, red sympathizers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves. The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Murders of Gonzago From: GUEST,Stim Date: 14 Jul 13 - 12:14 AM The documentary shows impact of American culture in ways that are rather surreal. At one point, the killers discuss the American actors, Al Pacino and Sidney Poitier, who they think they resemble. At another, they reenact the interrogation and torture of a Chinese Communist, who they accuse of campaigning to reduce the screening of American movies. Most disturbing, the killers said that they started out slashing their victims throats, but that it was too messy, and the learned how to strangle them with a ligature from an American gangster movie. |
