Good evening friends, welcome to the DNews Netflix Screening Room, I'm Trace.
This week I popped into Netflix on my iPad and Chomecasted to a TV at work to watch The
Act of Killing, which is nominated for an Oscar this year.
If you'd like to watch this movie, and I'd highly recommend it -- you can pick up Netflix
for yourself FREE for a month by going to Netflix.com/dnews and signing up.
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Plus, it helps support us here at DNews.
20th century Indonesia was a rough place.
There were political battles between the right and left wings, with the right finally coming
together and killing thousands of communists.
The Act of Killing follows the stories of some of the top death-squad leaders and allows
them a forum to relive their glory days.
It's very difficult to watch them joking about how they killed people, explaining why the
used this method or that -- For example: they preferred to strangle people with wire, because
beating them to death was too slow and the blood would make the room smell.
It was a simple, logical decision for them, but a horrendous one for humankind.
Psychotherapists and neurologists identify the traits of a psychopath as having superficial
charm, lack of remorse, and an impersonal sex life, whereas sociopaths have a lack of
empathy -- or the inability to understand the emotional responses of others.
The men featured by the documentary likely would fall into BOTH of these.
These murderers lied to the public, and killed the communist sympathizers for trumped-up
offenses, or sometimes just for associating with the wrong people.
A reasonable person would ask, how could they be so inhumane?
A study in the journal Brain, researched the ability of psychopaths to experience empathy
and found their brains were able to flip a switch turn it on or off.
This study suggests these men can still EXPERIENCE or UNDERSTAND empathy and morality the same
as anyone else, but may have simply flipped it off.
Watching the movie, you see some shadows of their inner torture, but only with some of
them.
These death-squad leaders describe what they've done with smiles on their faces the way you
or I would describe a weekend away with friends.
Their nostalgia and camaraderie is both banal and shocking.
They relive these terrible experiences with laughter, punctuated by discussions of politics,
morality, and ethics.
Strangely, as a group their discussions seem more apologetic, but alone their true feelings
range from tortured to defiant.
It's really jaw-dropping.
The scene where former death-squad leader Anwar Congo describes how he killed people
by strangling them with wire is super crazy.
He laughs while demonstrating the method by wrapping a wire around a pole, and then his
friends neck.
Then he leans away pulling the wire taut and looks at the camera with a smile.
Moments later, his face pulls as he recalls the numbing of these painful memories with
alcohol, drugs and sex.
You want to hate him and what he did in the name of politics and hatred, but you also
see him as an old man with regrets.
It's an emotional ride, for sure.
I'd highly recommend this powerful film, but you're probably gonna need a hug after.
If you have Netflix, check out 'The Act of Killing' and leave your review in the comments!
If you don't have it yet, visit netflix.com/dnews and sign up for that free month of streaming
and help support us here at DNews!
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Next Screening Room we're going to do a happy one, I promise!