''The Look of Silence'' (, "Silence") is a 2014 internationally co-produced

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Joshua Oppenheimer Joshua Lincoln Oppenheimer (born September 23, 1974) is an American-British film director based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is known for his Oscar-nominated films '' The Act of Killing'' (2012) and ''The Look of Silence'' (2014), Oppenheimer was ...

about the

Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 The Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, also known as the Indonesian genocide, Indonesian Communist Purge, or Indonesian politicide ( id, Pembunuhan Massal Indonesia & Pembersihan G.30.S/PKI), were large-scale killings and civil unrest pri ...

. The film is a companion piece to his 2012 documentary ''

The Act of Killing ''The Act of Killing'' ( id, Jagal, meaning "Butcher") is a 2012 documentary film about individuals who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966. The film is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn and ...

''. Executive producers were

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara ...

, and Andre Singer. It was nominated for the

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

at the

88th Academy Awards The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2015 and took place on February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST. Du ...

Overview

A middle-aged Indonesian man, whose brother was brutally murdered in the 1965 Indonesian Communist Purge, confronts the men who carried out the killings. Out of concern for his safety, the man is not fully identified in the film and is credited only as "anonymous," as are many of the film's crew positions. Some shots consist of the man watching (what seems to be) extra footage from ''The Act of Killing'', which includes video of the men who killed his brother. He visits and interviews some of the killers and their collaborators—including his uncle—under the pretense of an eye exam. Although none of the killers expresses any remorse, the daughter of one of them is clearly shaken when she hears, apparently for the first time, the details of the killings. Also interspersed, there are scenes of his elderly mother and his almost deaf and blind father.

Release

The film was screened in the official competition at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, the International Film Critics Award (

FIPRESCI The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

), the Italian online critics award (Mouse d'Oro), the European Film Critics Award (FEDEORA), as well as the Human Rights Nights Award. Since then, it has gone on to win multiple awards, including Best World Documentary (Cinephile Prize) at the

Busan International Film Festival The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festi ...

, the Grand Prize (DOX Award) at CPH:DOX, the prize for Best Documentary at the Starz Denver Film Festival, a Danish Arts Council Award for outstanding achievement in filmmaking, and the Best Film Award at the One World human rights documentary film festival. On 10 November 2014, 2,000 people came to the official and public premiere of the film in Jakarta. On 10 December 2014,

International Human Rights Day Human Rights Day is list of minor secular observances#December, celebrated annually around the world on 10 December every year. The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, ...

, there were 480 public screenings of the film across Indonesia. The screenings of the film in Indonesia has been sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia and the Jakarta Arts Council. It was selected for screening in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the

65th Berlin International Film Festival The 65th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 February 2015, with American film director Darren Aronofsky as the President of the Jury. German film director Wim Wenders was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear. The ...

in February 2015. In February 2016, Oppenheimer, along with

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, screened the film for members of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid pro ...

and their House counterparts, officials from the Department of State, and members of the

White House National Security Council The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Execut ...

staff. Oppenheimer hoped the Oscar buzz the film was generating would pressure the US government to formally acknowledge its collusion in the killings. After its theatrical release, the film aired on US television as part of the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

series '' POV''.

Reception

Critical response

''The Look of Silence'' received critical acclaim. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a 96% approval rating, and an average rating of 8.8/10, based on 136 reviews. The website's critical consensus states, "''The Look of Silence'' delivers a less shocking – yet just as terribly compelling – companion piece to Joshua Oppenheimer's ''

''". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a 92 out of 100 rating based on 29 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". On 14 January 2016, the film was nominated for the

Awards and nominations

As of March 2016, ''The Look of Silence '' has won 70 international awards, including the following:

References

External links

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''The Look of Silence''
at '' POV'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Look Of Silence, The 2014 documentary films 2014 films American documentary films American sequel films British documentary films British sequel films Danish documentary films Danish sequel films Documentary films about the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966 Dutch documentary films Dutch sequel films Films set in Indonesia Films set in the 1960s Films shot in Indonesia Finnish documentary films Finnish sequel films French sequel films German documentary films German sequel films Indonesian documentary films Indonesian sequel films 2010s Indonesian-language films Israeli documentary films Israeli sequel films Plaion Norwegian documentary films Norwegian sequel films Venice Grand Jury Prize winners Best Documentary Bodil Award winners Best Documentary Robert Award winners 2010s American films 2010s British films 2010s German films