Interview: Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing)

Rooted in the experience of those who lived with killers as neighbors, somewhere along the way, it’s docu-helmer found that he’d have a more facile time at finding his story when he shifted his camera away from the victims (he’ll shift back in 2014 with The Look of Silence). Viewers might feel that as guests at a cannibalistic feast, but in reality, The Act of Killing warns us that we’re not that far removed from them. Joshua Oppenheimer gains extraordinary access into the desensitized, the psyche of proud Indonesian death squad members such as Anwar, the type of individual who ceremoniously details his glory days and boastfully re-enacts his killing techniques.

Before premiering at 2012’s Telluride and Toronto Int. Film Festival (where this sit down occurred) and being critically lauded documentary film with early supporters in the likes of Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, Oppenheimer’s arduous and taxing seven-year filmmaking journey (where he spent three years of that time editing the hundreds of hours of footage) offers a mind-numbingly raw insight into how normality is built on terror and violence.