I think 'The Act of Killing' forced people to look at the problem, but the problem is actually a state run by thugs, or a shadow state, a part of the state that's run by thugs, and a military that enjoys complete legal - not just impunity, but immunity.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the pervasive violence and moral corruption within state systems, particularly those that operate beyond accountability.
In this quote, Joshua Oppenheimer emphasizes the troubling existence of a shadow state, characterized by thuggish behavior and a military apparatus that operates with total legal immunity. He suggests that the film 'The Act of Killing' compels the audience to confront uncomfortable truths about violence and impunity within governmental structures, provoking reflection on the ethical implications of such a state.
In practice
During a discussion on government accountability, this quote can underscore the importance of addressing systemic violence.
If we don't accept the uncomfortable proposition that every perpetrator of virtually every act of evil in our history has been a human being like us, then we actually foreclose the possibility of understanding how we do this to one another and therefore make it impossible to figure out how we might prevent these things.
In documentary filmmaking, there's a tradition of telling stories about victims. We often do that from a very patronizing place, but mostly we do it from a very selfish place, to reassure ourselves that our lives are in sympathy and solidarity with the victims.
My father's family was mostly obliterated in the Holocaust, and I grew up very much with the sense that the central moral and political question is how do we prevent these things from happening again.
I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.
We are constantly - in order to cope with painful realities - shuffling through third-rate, half-remembered fantasies taken from movies, from TV, from people we admire. We do this individually, we do it collectively - we tell stories to escape our most painful truths.
People may assume 'The Act of Killing' is a historical documentary about what happened in 1965. But our purpose was to expose a present-day regime of fear for what it is.
If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far: I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself... something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
But there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has very little power.
There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it.
The reason death sticks so closely to life isnβt biological necessity β itβs envy.
The present rearranges the past. We never tell the story whole because a life isn't a story; it's a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.
But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord." "It might to keep it open.
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