Indonesia in Cinema

The ‘Islamic’ in films can often be elusive and ambiguous rather than fixed, and convey its religious message through an intersection of gender, class, and the nation.

What does it mean to be French after seeing Battle of Algiers (1965)? Or American after watching Season of the Whirlwind (1978) from Vietnam? Or Dutch after viewing Usmar Ismail’s Darah dan Doa (1950)? Before the Timor invasion and occupation, we, as a formerly colonized people, may have conveniently asked such questions. Today, we’re privileged to have a similar question put to us: what does it mean to be an Indonesian after seeing Beatriz’s War?

Both films really show us the dilemma of documentary when it encounters criminals, perpetrators, and killers. It forces us to not only think about how documentary can be used for exposing such heinous acts, but also whether it in fact should be.

We need to position Joshua Oppenheimer’s films within the network of cultural activism that already exists in Indonesia. This requires a more open discussion about the ramifications of power as part of the process and limitations of activists and filmmakers in creating cultural interventions.

The Look of Silence was celebrated and supported by human rights activists. National Commission on Human Rights even provided a letter of support for the film screenings in Indonesia. The questions are, how could they support a film which exploited its subjects, a film that creates a new stigma against the powerless, a film which has questionable ethics in its making? Is it true that we do not need ethics in our fights for human rights?