MovieChat Forums > The Look of Silence (2015) Discussion > Great concept, mixed end result

Great concept, mixed end result

posted 8 years ago by HrutkaPal
5 replies | jump to latest

It was an interesting idea to push the idea of "The Act of Killing" a bit further, by entering a new side to the cruelty: Confronting a victims relative to those murderers.

Still, the end result was just weird. Some thoughts of mine:

-The movie structure was strange. The motivation of Adi was so randomly set up. How about some discussion with HIM first, about why he must do this, why he is risking his and his family's lie, how those hitmen actually agreed to this.

Instead we saw totally pointless recordings of his senile half-dead father, who had nothing to contribute to the movies subject. I felt really akward, why I need to watch this old mans suffering. Strange enough how the 44 year old protagonist could have a 100 year old mother and a 110(?) year old father. It was interesting to see Adi's child/wife, but overall it was also pointless to see him argue with his farting daughter. These moments didn't really make me feel closer to him

-Why confronting the uncle? He somewhat blamed him that he assisted the murders as a prison guard. How naive can he be, that he could've done anything in that situation?

-The Interviews: Most interesting parts of the movie, still, I felt there was no conclusion to them (same goes for the whole movie). He asked questions, they answered (sometimes blurry). Adi shows no reaction for 10 seconds. Next question. It didn't really felt like I'm watching an interview. Maybe the real talk wasn't like that, only the editing made it look like this. If so, it was a bad move, to sacrifice the flow of the talk to import some director's signature move art with the still images.

-Why do I have to read afterwards what the afterlife of Adi is? That he had to move away after production. This should've been more than clear for him already when they kept doing the interviews

[–] goonies383 8 years ago

I agree with pretty much all of what you said. I felt the Act of Killing is the superior documentary and this really brought little knew to the table. And though it offered a bit of the victim perspective it didn't develope that at all.

[–] kire1975 8 years ago

"Why do I have to..."

You don't.

[–] eurodrigo 8 years ago

Well, I think once you've watched The Act of Killing, and you're shocked by the lack of remorse, this one won't impact you the same way.

I think the family scenes are there to show that Adi's family is quite poor, while the killers have money and occupy public positions. The happy family scenes are necessary to show that, even though life is good, there is some unfinished issue affecting his family that he has to deal with.

The meetings with the killers and with his uncle don't expect to get answers. I think Adi just want to meet them, look them in the eye, try to understand how they could do such a thing. And make them face someone who was affected by their actions, so they have to think about what they did.

When asked, all the interviewees speak out the 'official lines' that they've repeated for decades. The seconds of silence afterwards let them simmer their own thoughts, so they have to face their own demons. In some cases you can read quite a lot in their eyes going nervous or sad.

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!

[–] Kuruwin 8 years ago

And what has to be remembered that they are talking about really grim subject. Having to discuss something like that can easily make you speechless.

[–] 8 years ago

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