Crazy killings, ridiculous quibbles and helpless grief hide under the calm narrative. Huge and heavy emotions quickly gathered in less than 100 minutes, reached the peak and could not be released, and even after leaving the theater, they could not let go for a long time.
The content of the film revolves around the September 30 incident in Indonesia. Simply put, the Indonesian government was overthrown and the new military government launched a massacre of the communists. According to the data mentioned in the film, the number of dead was in the millions. Of course, not all of them are Communists, and the protagonist's brother should also be one of the innocent victims.
I don't want to dwell on ideological right or wrong here, and the director obviously has no intention of whitewashing the Indonesian Communists. As a digression here, if this film was introduced because the perspective of the persecution of the Communist Party has downplayed the sensitive element of political suppression, then I must say that the censors really need to reflect on their past actions, and then Considering whether to release the film.
Back to the topic, what the director shows us is not ideological right or wrong, which he has skillfully avoided, and given his Western background, and his perspective focused on the persecution of the Communist Party, he subtly Using this contrast to avoid the suspicion of speaking from a Western standpoint. So the next message he was trying to convey was particularly sincere—that is, the ugliness of human nature, the absolute ugliness that is not influenced by ideology or religious beliefs. This point, I think, as Chinese, we should have a deeper understanding after watching this film.
The film is divided into two main lines.
The first is the self-report of an executioner that the director had filmed before. The other is the process in which the protagonist, after reading the self-report, visits the executioners of the year, and tries to make them repent by talking.
Let me tell you the story of the executioner. After reading it, my biggest feeling is puzzlement. Because it is hard for me to imagine that a bloodthirsty murderer could happily and vividly describe the sins he had committed without the slightest shame. His narration eclipses all the villains I've seen in movies before. The true character makes every piece of his narration seem unreal - the content is outrageous and the attitude is unbelievably light-hearted. But he was by no means mad, nor did he appear to be mentally ill. In fact, in good spirits. Speaking of excitement, they danced and even recreated the scene of the massacre with their comrades back then. Here I would like to thank the director for providing us with such a valuable video material, allowing us to witness with our own eyes how crazy and ugly people can be. Just like a Nazi officer who has traveled through today, he happily leads tourists to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, introduces it in an almost proud tone, and even brags about the function and "brilliant results" of those gas chambers.
Let's talk about the protagonist. The film suggests to us that he is supposed to be working as an optician, and this becomes a pretense for his approach to those interviewed. Throughout the film, there are many close-ups of his eyes, which perfectly interprets the title, the look of silence. We can see helplessness, pain and confusion in his eyes. If I remember correctly, Tagore once had a poem, "The silence of the slave frightens the master." Every time he stared ahead, it was this powerful silence that tortured the executioner opposite every second. No matter how shameless he faced, he never quarreled. Although his eyes were occasionally red, he never cried. Such an ordinary man perfectly interprets the weak strength and the ordinary greatness. If this is acting, then he and the executioner who described himself above are definitely at the level of Oscar winners, but this is obviously not a compliment. Because we are dealing with reality.
reality? What is real? Márquez seems to have said that the real world is sometimes more illusory than fiction. This sentence couldn't be more appropriate in this film. The protagonist found one of the executioners of the year, and faced the protagonist's question, "What does human blood taste like?" The old man said calmly, "Salt and sweet." Then he added that drinking blood by himself In order not to go crazy. In those days, there were really people who didn't drink, so they got up early every day and climbed up the tree to pray, asking for God's forgiveness. He said so with plausibility and peace of mind.
What a dialogue of magical realism this is. It is also the perfect annotation of Lu Xun's "Medicine". His two sentences show us profoundly the essence of human beings. What is a person? Humans are animals that have to drink the blood of their own kind so they don't go mad after being killed! Man is an animal that avoids his own inner torture through such absurd superstitions! Under the aegis of absurd beliefs, all madness is forgiven. I don't know, his own words have become the biggest irony for people like him.
This is also the exploration of the psychological mechanism of self-exemption of people presented to us by the film. In the face of the camera and the families of the victims, the executioner prevaricates through superstition and orders, while the officials are full of ideology and national interests, and make threats and hints. Different words, same way. But we should pay attention to people like the protagonist's uncle. He avoided guilt by using himself only as a jailer with no blood on his hands. Standing idly by is sometimes aiding the mischief. The Holocaust was never committed by one or two people. So from this perspective, whether officials or executioners, they can't actually bear such a moral burden. They are not qualified. What really needs to be reflected is society as a whole, and even all of humanity. The NBC News clip used in the film is a cold-blooded account of the massacre in Indonesia. Let me ask, aren't you outraged at NBC? Is this lukewarm tone of yours appropriate? Is it also a help to Zhou's abuse? Sure enough, there are still double standards at work...
or that sentence, I am not here to dwell on the right and wrong of ideology, I just think that Indonesians should take a good look at this movie and reflect on it. As for us Chinese, it seems that such a deafening film is lacking, but this does not mean that there are no scars covered by silence in this land.
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