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Good evening friends, welcome to the DNews Netflix Screening Room, I'm Trace. This week
I popped into Netflix on my iPad and Chomecasted to a TV at work to watch The Act of Killing,
which is nominated for an Oscar this year. If you'd like to watch this movie, and I'd
highly recommend it -- you can pick up Netflix for yourself FREE for a month by going to
Netflix.com/dnews and signing up. You could be streaming TV and movies to all your devices
in no time! Plus, it helps support us here at DNews.
20th century Indonesia was a rough place. There were political battles between the right
and left wings, with the right finally coming together and killing thousands of communists.
The Act of Killing follows the stories of some of the top death-squad leaders and allows
them a forum to relive their glory days. It's very difficult to watch them joking about
how they killed people, explaining why the used this method or that -- For example: they
preferred to strangle people with wire, because beating them to death was too slow and the
blood would make the room smell. It was a simple, logical decision for them, but a horrendous
one for humankind.
Psychotherapists and neurologists identify the traits of a psychopath as having superficial
charm, lack of remorse, and an impersonal sex life, whereas sociopaths have a lack of
empathy -- or the inability to understand the emotional responses of others. The men
featured by the documentary likely would fall into BOTH of these. These murderers lied to
the public, and killed the communist sympathizers for trumped-up offenses, or sometimes just
for associating with the wrong people. A reasonable person would ask, how could they
be so inhumane? A study in the journal Brain, researched the ability of psychopaths to experience
empathy and found their brains were able to flip a switch turn it on or off. This study
suggests these men can still EXPERIENCE or UNDERSTAND empathy and morality the same as
anyone else, but may have simply flipped it off. Watching the movie, you see some shadows
of their inner torture, but only with some of them.
These death-squad leaders describe what they've done with smiles on their faces the way you
or I would describe a weekend away with friends. Their nostalgia and camaraderie is both banal
and shocking. They relive these terrible experiences with laughter, punctuated by discussions of
politics, morality, and ethics. Strangely, as a group their discussions seem more apologetic,
but alone their true feelings range from tortured to defiant. It's really jaw-dropping.
The scene where former death-squad leader Anwar Congo describes how he killed people
by strangling them with wire is super crazy. He laughs while demonstrating the method by
wrapping a wire around a pole, and then his friends neck. Then he leans away pulling the
wire taut and looks at the camera with a smile. Moments later, his face pulls as he recalls
the numbing of these painful memories with alcohol, drugs and sex. You want to hate him
and what he did in the name of politics and hatred, but you also see him as an old man
with regrets. It's an emotional ride, for sure.
I'd highly recommend this powerful film, but you're probably gonna need a hug after. If
you have Netflix, check out 'The Act of Killing' and leave your review in the comments! If
you don't have it yet, visit netflix.com/dnews and sign up for that free month of streaming
and help support us here at DNews! Thanks for watching, make sure you subscribe. Next
Screening Room we're going to do a happy one, I promise!