Joshua Oppenheimer and "The Act of Killing"

Joshua Oppenheimer isn't the only documentary filmmaker to aim his lens at the perpetrators of atrocities. But he may be the first to find such willing subjects. In his new film The Act of Killing, former Indonesian death squad members are only too pleased to describe their participation in the anti-communist purges of 1965-1966, when they helped butcher anywhere from 500,000 to more than a million people. So enthused were the aged genocidaires that they took an active role in Oppenheimer's project, re-enacting their youthful exploits for the camera. Werner Herzog, who served as executive producer with Errol Morris, says, “I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade… it is unprecedented in the history of cinema.” Joshua Oppenheimer has been interviewed relentlessly as The Act of Killing debuts across the country, so when I got my chance, I tried to skip some of the compulsories and dig a little deeper into the details of the film and the queasy questions it raises.