The Act of Killing. The most important movie I've seen

Ok, I don't normally blog about the politics etc so much, but this one I can't miss.  I've FINALLY seen "The Act of Killing."  It's out on DVD.   It's the most important movie I've seen.  Ever.

Not necessarily because of the stated topic of the film, which is the genocide in Indonesia in 1965 backed by the US and other western powers.   That IS important and I'll be reading and researching to understand that more fully.

For me the most important part is to realize that the people who committed this genocide are not that different from me.   That nauseated me at the time and it nauseates me now.  There were several moments during the film where I identified with one of the men on the screen.  Scary.   I also appreciated what they said.  The pure truths that came out of their mouths and out of their experiences as victors.

So, what is this film.  Well...it's a documentary but it's a surrealist film.  Possibly more surrealist because it documents not the basic facts and events of the genocide.   There is very little in the way of body counts, dates, political players being named.  Instead, the director, Joshua Oppenheimer, tracked down some of the men who did the actual killing and asked them to stage scenes showing what they had done.   In the DVD extras he states that he has 1200 hours of film over 8 years with DOZENS of these executioners.   The executioners were not military men, government men.  They were gangsters.  Youth in gangs.   They were used by the military, the government and the otherwise powerful to do the killing.  Sound familiar?  Do we perchance have contractors doing some of our overseas killing now?

Anyway.  Back to this film (that's the trouble with this film, it keeps hitting you with things the US has done that are absolutely parallel...or absolutely central to this genocide like providing money, materials and lists of people to kill)....ANYWAY, back to this film.

The main executioner portrayed in the film is Anwar Congo.  He claims to have killed 1000 people, more or less.   I don't know if that is "true."  But in the scheme of things where there are probably thousands of Anwars in Indonesia who killed hundreds of people, he gives us a picture of one.  He may be "acting" and embellishing because as a victor he has been celebrated for his acts.  Our own military men have been known to do this.  During the Indian Wars in the US, the executioners embellished their body counts.   Anwar loved movies.  He used movies, American movies, to inform his methods of killing.  He acted them out then.   And now he stages scenes from his life.   Oppenheimer told him, and the others we don't see the footage of, to stage these scenes in anyway they choose.  He did not say that it had to be 100% realistic, accurate, etc.  He said as the executioner chooses.   This is how one executioner and his colleagues chose. 

It's wrenching.   It's surprising when you empathize with Anwar and the others.  It's surprising how forthcoming they are.  It's surprising how much they understand and say outloud.   They know their prestige is based on lies.   They also know that the US doesn't have a leg to stand on.  As one executioner points out...when did we apologize to the Indians?  What about Guantamo?   Who are we to tell him what is a war crime.  The victors define war crimes and he is a victor.    Painful but true.

This is barely a taste of the film.   It's incredibly complex.

As a film it is completely original.   Werner Herzog says so.

http://theactofkilling.com/ 

Ow...

So, this Berne and Barb's Fat Camp I've been attending...
OK, it's not a fat camp, but Berne and Barb should TOTALLY run a fat camp.
They've invited me biking the last two Thursdays afterwork.
They each own a catrike :













Berne let me try his last year and that is why I bought a trike this year.
So, we're old people on trikes. Sad. Yet fun.

ANYWAY. The first ride was 16 miles on flattish ground. Well, the second ride was about 16 miles...8 uphill and 8 downhill. OW. I could walk the next day, but my outer thighs hurt. There must be muscle under the fat. They'd be OK until I tried to get out of a chair. Then OK until I tried to walk. Then OK until I tried stairs. I think I went a bit beyond my capabilities.
Still, going downhill for 8miles was great! My trike has something Berne called "roll resistance" (something my midsection does not have). So, even downhill I had to peddle a bit. Something about the mountain bike type tires and blah blah blah.
AND the first mile or two uphill seemed awfully difficult until I figured out that I'd left the parking brake on. OOPS! The rear brake can be set to keep the trike from rolling around while parked. It creates quite a bit of drag while biking.

I'm pretending it's a new workout technique. Biking with brakes on for more resistence.

Still, I'm pretty impressed at how far I can go for being in such crap shape. Definitely need to get the yoga activity back to keep these new muscles long.

Speaking of biking. This guy:
http://www.tylerboudreau.com/
is staying at my trailer tonight. He's biking across the country and needed somewhere between Spokane and Moscow. That would my trailer.
He says he was not a distance biker until now. I guess he will be now. Probably helps to have been in the military and in generally excellent shape.

I haven't read his book because I suck...but I'll get to it. He'll be on the radio show tomorrow so tune in.

A Fantastic Film

A friend (Hi Ange!) once told me that I should rank my favorite films according to how many times she'll want to kill herself during the viewing. With this one, I'd say just once, but it will last from beginning to end.

It's The Cats of Mirikitani by Linda Hattendorf, 2007 (some sources say 2006).

Absolutely amazing. I learned more about Japanese Americans, internment camps during WWII, and the personal experience of Hiroshima than I've ever learned from books.

Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani is one of the world's unique characters. Quite funny and tragic and open and expressive and a self proclaimed master artist. I tend to agree with him. His art is fascinating. The comments he makes about Hiroshima and his choice between the U.S. and Japan are wrenching (he has double citizenship). If you have netflix you can watch it online, but you need to see the extras that are only on the DVD too. The extras include his trip back to Japan and his meeting with family after 60years of believing he had no family left. 60 YEARS he thought he was alone in the world.

And still he talked of peace, and forgiveness and war by telling his story to people on the streets of New York.

He's alive (as far as I can tell) and as much as I want his art, it isn't for sale right now. Oh well, that's his right.

Pangea Day

I managed to watch Pangea Day online! Woohoo!
I missed the first few minutes, but saw the rest, even had popcorn to eat.

Some of the movies were great, some were good. Others were...well, OK.

The one about Combatants for Peace (check them out at www.combatantsforpeace.org)is pretty cool. The comments after the film by one of the participants were even more wrenching than the film.

The only critique is that there was too much chatter between films. Too many celebrities (or people who think they are celebrities) and some of the music seemed gratuitous.

The goal of promoting peace seems pretty cool and this could become a regularly occurring event.

The movies will be available online for a while. In fact more movies than were shown during the 4 hour event, will be available online. I intend to watch them all.

Enjoy the films at: www.pangeaday.org

On The Radio...

Today was radio show day.

Every other week I'm on a show called "Peace Radio" on KRFP Radio Free Moscow, out of Moscow, Idaho. You can stream it from this site:
http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/. The station is all volunteer community radio. There are one or two "paid" people like the station manager, but the pay is so low it's worse than volunteering.

I'm actually on this show due to an error. My officemate John came to work and said that his wife Sally had said I was going to be on the show! The show was just getting organized by the Palouse Peace Coalition (http://www.palousepeace.org/) with which I'd been tangentially involved.
I started wracking my brain to remember if I'd committed to something. I couldn't remember saying I'd actually DO anything, but e-mailed Sally, the wife in question, just to see if I had.

It seems there is another Jill who had committed to helping on the air, but by this time, I was pretty interested and said I'd come on and finally settled on doing movie reviews for peace. That has expanded to pretty much anything I'm watching since any joy in life tends to promoted peace, love and understanding.

I've branched out and also do some of the interviews on the air, a bit of pre-recorded stuff and even learned to run the board...more or less. The other Jill mostly runs the board but Sally and I can do it if pressed.

Sally, me and the other Jill have become the core group for the show and we're over a year into it now. When we started another peace coalition member ran the boards and we tried rotating the "dj" duties, but it didn't pan out for the long term. The group of three seems to work well and a woman named Miriam comes about 2/3rds of the time to do a bit for kids at the end of the show.

We have a few listeners...especially my sister and my friend Jonny because I call them and make them listen and then tell me I was great.

The show is a nice outlet for my liberal diatribes and I get news that I don't hear elsewhere. The other Jill usually brings in headlines. Sally does book reviews and most of the scheduling as well as many of the hosting duties.

If anyone out there in Blog-land (hi pam!) would like to listen to the show, check us out every other sunday (we were on today), from 2-4pm Pacific time. Unless we couldn't make it that day or we go two sundays in a row and throw the schedule off...the station is pretty casual about that.