The film unfolds slowly in an interview with the executioner who committed numerous crimes in the "930 incident" in Indonesia but has not been punished so far. If director Joshua Oppenheimer showed a little bit of optimism in his last work "Deduction of Killing", it is hard to say what expectations and fantasies he has about human nature in "The Silent Image". Among all the people interviewed by the protagonist, Adi, none were willing to admit to the numerous crimes they committed during the massacre. They even included Adi’s uncle who was in charge of the prison at the time. In a school, a history teacher vividly described to the students the brutality of the Indonesian Communists and the Indonesian people's feats of rebelling against the Communists. However, in fact, in addition to the real existence of the evil effects caused by such political propaganda, the so-called "historical facts" are fundamentally non-existent.
The most fascinating and at the same time the most dramatic aspect of "The Silent Statue" is no longer the show off of the murderous demons in "Killing Interpretation" that they have no regrets about their crimes-it may also be that we have become accustomed to this "normal abnormality" "—It is no longer the murderous devil’s painful remorse and "A Clockwork Orange" retching at the end of the film, but the confrontation and silence between the murderer and the person involved. What’s shocking is that despite the facts are clear and the truth is clear, the parties are often dumb and unreasonable by the executioners. Some in power can even accuse Adi and Oppenheimer behind the camera with a vicious face of deliberately committing "community". "Coup d'etat" is really ridiculous and terrifying.
In this case, the denial of guilt by every bloodthirsty makes the accusation impossible. After tit-for-tat, what he gets is not certain "right" or "wrong", but rather greater doubts: people can't help but ask. Who should fill the "responsibility vacuum" created by this "group denial"? Is it the common people, politicians, the country, or the so-called "communists" themselves? On the other hand, "The Image of Silence" tests the conscience of the executioners at the same time: when we face the wicked elders, should we spare them, forget the past, or break them into pieces," In the way of the other, return to the body"? In other words, to get rid of the wicked, will it mean that new evil will be produced on the spot? In this sense, "The Silent Image" brings people even more thinking than "Deduction of Killing", because it is no longer only about history and providing mirrors, but also allows viewers to hold a butcher knife and make their own decisions.
Of course, to the various questions raised by Oppenheimer in the film, the victim's mother who is over a hundred years old gave a conscientious answer-"God will punish them." But will endless patience and excess conscience encourage evil? Perhaps it is another unsolvable problem.
In the post-screening talks of the North Film Festival, the producer of "Silent Image" talked about Oppenheimer's not wanting to shoot a "complaint", but a cruel "poetry". Indeed, compared to the grief, condemnation, and scars that can never be wiped out in Holocaust movies (Claude Lanzmann) and S21 Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (Pan Lide), Oppenheimer The documentary of the film seems to show the victim’s forgetfulness and peace. For example, the victim’s old father has lost his eyesight and even forgot his son’s name, as if fifty years have been enough to wash away all crimes. Because of this, the director Oppenheimer chose the "optometrist" and "insertion frame" such as "poetic eyes" that dominate the overall situation and are very symbolic, as if to borrow the eyes of the executioner, "Let you confuse this Look at it clearly, plainly, and truly."
The so-called "jumping beans" (shrub seeds with moths in them) are also fascinating. At the end of the film, the hundred-year-old mother holds three or four jumping beans in her hand, hoping that her dead son can "pupa into a butterfly". This image is undoubtedly poetic and beautiful, but looking back at the wrinkled face and the lives that can’t get rid of their shells, it is not a cruel, a kind of sorrow.
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