Third place:
In Jackson Heights [44 points / 10 votes]
Second place:
Amy [56 points / 14 votes]
And the Muriel goes to…
“Nothing feels as pointless as attempting to write something meaningful about Joshua Oppenheimer's extraordinary documentary The Look of Silence.
“As the title indicates, words simply can't adequately describe what you feel. Adi, the ophthalmologist at the center of this documentary, tries to address the issue of his brother's death during the mass murder of suspected communists in Indonesia directly to the faces of those complicit in these purges. He sees in their faces, as do we, the wheels turning inside their heads as they try to grapple with the horrors of the past. Do they realize the moral depravity of their past actions?”
“Adi and Oppenheimer don’t even seem terribly interested in getting verbal responses, anyway—most any verbal response they receive is defensive. They are interested in poking holes in the façade. Adi uses his questions as jabs, and no matter how his interview subjects may try to parry with retorts of their own, they can’t hide non-verbal reactions. The frustration, the anger, the genuine consideration of the moral ramifications—these things don’t reside in the questions or the answers, but in the glances in between. The eyes are the windows to the soul (or lack thereof, potentially).
“Even that description feels reductive. Consider the following scene: Adi and Oppenheimer confront one of the men giving orders during the purges. The man hears the topic brought up, attempts to deflect, but Adi persists. The man casually asks Adi his family name, the same way that I might ask ‘what do you do?’ to a stranger at a cocktail party. Adi could’ve easily bit his tongue here, but he persists—he informs the man that he will not divulge his name, because he knows that it would put his family in danger if this man had any information on them. The look in the man’s eyes is indescribable. He went from basic societal civility to ‘how can I find this man and kill him later?’ in the span of thirty seconds. What scripted drama could possibly dare to compare? What actors could possibly deliver a performance that matches the searing intensity of a man actually considering how to kill another man on camera?
“The movie doesn’t just value the silence of the subjects of the interviews. We also watch Adi as he observes video of men gloating about the purges, bragging about the very events that led to his brother’s horrifically gruesome death. Oppenheimer films Adi’s face up close as he learns and gathers information. His face is austere: he lives in a world where outward emotional responses can get you killed, so he internalizes— but when your face fills the frame, your eyes tell us everything we need to know. Oppenheimer doesn’t have Adi talk about his feelings. He knows the value of the look.
“Most of us would agree that the word ‘brave’ gets tossed around far too frequently as it pertains to film. Sitting in the cold and eating bison liver isn’t brave by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m told otherwise. However, since I can’t videotape myself watching The Look of Silence and put the footage of my eyes on their poster as the non-verbal equivalent of an enticing pull quote, I feel unashamed to say that this is one of the bravest films of my lifetime, and, paired with its companion piece The Act of Killing, it represents one of the most towering achievements of storytelling I’ve had the pleasure to behold. Both are currently available in various streaming formats. If you haven’t seen these films, check them out immediately.” ~ Russell Hainline
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