When Adi told me in 2012 that this was what he wanted to do, I said no immediately, because I thought it would be too dangerous and then he explained why he wanted to do it. For a survivor to confront a perpetrator while the perpetrator retains that much power has never been filmed before because it is usually too dangerous. What Adi is doing is unprecedented, not just in the history of Indonesia but in the history of non–fiction cinema. Were you concerned Adi’s confrontation with his brother’s killers might be dangerous? Everybody with power in the local government is either a perpetrator or a protégé of a perpetrator, without exception, so people are afraid of them. But certainly in the region where we were shooting the film the perpetrators really do control the power structure.
This is something that still needs to be done.
At the national level for this to change President Jokowi would have to do something to distance himself from the oligarchs and the cronies of the former military dictatorship who surround him, but he hasn’t done this yet in my view. It doesn’t mean they have an absolute monopoly on power. The perpetrators are able to maintain fear in the community because they continue to hold power across the country. How can the perpetrators manage to maintain this level fear in the community? In calling them murderers he breaks through fifty years of unspoken taboo in Indonesia. The most shocking aspect of The Look of Silence is Adi Rukun’s confrontation with his brother’s killers. This is an edited transcript of that interview. Jess Melvin spoke with Joshua Oppenheimer on 18 March 2015 as he arrived back in Denmark from a promotional tour in the United States. Following on from the award winning documentary The Act of Killing, director Joshua Oppenheimer talks about making his second film The Look of Silence and its impact in Indonesia and around the world.