The author reports on a film that has been recently released to Western audiences that revives a colossal crime against humanity (1965 Indonesian coup against Sukarno) engineered in large part by US agents to secure Indonesia for capitalist investments and free from "communist" interference. US media largely succeeded in keeping it out of the news; hence, most Americans are unaware of this massive crime committed by agents of their ruling class.
For a brief real history of this sordid episode, read this piece based on a British historian's investigations. For a longer exposé read Indonesia: the Second Greatest Crime of the Century by Deirdre Griswold.
And from a website promoting the film in the US:
In Theaters Now
"A MASTERPIECE... & A MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT." –The Village VoiceThe film is now being shown across the US. Check out the schedule for its presentation in your area here.
In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Errol Morris (The Fog Of War) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), the filmmakers examine a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of mass-murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit. Shaking audiences at the 2012 Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals and winning an Audience Award at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival, The Act of Killing is an unprecedented film that, according to The Los Angeles Times, "could well change how you view the documentary form."
