A critical glance into the metacinematic gestures of The Act of Killing

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates a productionist metafilm that exposes a singular organisational method: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing. Productionist metafilms are reflexive works which display the processual dimension of filmmaking to the extent that the frontstage of production tends to coincide with the backstage. These films empower participants and exalt their incisive role, commonly subordinated to the decision-making power wielded by film directors. Their estranging character is mainly due to the presence of metacinematic gestures: film segments which exhibit cinema as a medium. This film analysis is approached through a dissection of the notion of gesture in productionist metafilms as imbued with impersonal markers of enunciation. The Act of Killing performs gestures which trigger forms of psychoanalytical self-examination in its participants while unpacking socio-cultural and organisational issues related to the Indonesian society and the nature of the filmmaking process. Through performances of role-playing and role-reversal, the film awakes the perpetrators’ suppressed sense of guilt and the consequences of impunity. Finally, it outstrips the narratives of denial and increases self-awareness of their complex psychological and socio-cultural condition.

KEYWORDS:

• Metacinema
• reflexivity
• gesture
• role-playing
• role-reversal
• self-examination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. After The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer embarked in a new project giving voice to the victims, The Look of Silence (2014), this time without the assistance of Christine Cynn and their anonymous, Indonesian collaborator. The second documentary opts for a more confrontational approach. Indeed, it poses a family that survived the massacre before the men who killed one of their members. The Look of Silence acts as a complementary piece to the earlier documentary. Both films are to be intended as part of a representational diptych in which The Act of Killing deals with the imaginary transfigurations of historical facts and The Look of Silence more directly observes the killers through the uncompromising standpoint of one of their victims.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matteo Ciccognani

Dr. Matteo Ciccognani is currently a Teaching Fellow at the School of Business of the University of Leicester. He was awarded his PhD with a thesis entitled:Metacinematic Gestures, An Investigation of The Productionist Aspect of Self-Reflexive Films. The thesis investigates the difference between illusionistic and self-reflexive cinema, attempts to provide an outline of the concept of metacinematic gesture, produces a grid of intelligibility of distinct metacinematic gestures, and finally proposes an analysis of a circumscribed cross-section of movies among the sketched category of “productionist metafilms.” His research currently expands on cinema and surveillance, reflexivity in Social Media, and organisational performance in narratives and films.