On the Act of Looking

A collection of multi-disciplinary essays that analyses the formal, historical, ethical, and political significance of Joshua Oppenheimer’s ground-breaking documentary films The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence.

This collection analyzes Joshua Oppenheimer’s diptych The Act of Killing and The Look of Silenceas a cinematic event that invites interrelated questions on historical memory, truth and reconciliation, and the limits of documentary filmmaking. Featuring a new interview with Joshua Oppenheimer himself, On the Act of Looking affirms Oppenheimer’s use of fiction and manipulation as a technique to expose, contrary to the classic documentary form, not so much a reality behind the appearance of things, but how appearance as such can become a site of intervention or truth-telling. Contributors to this collection, including film scholars, art historians, historians, political scientists, philosophers, and Indonesian human rights activists, answer why Oppenheimer's documentary films not only have received near universal praise and admiration, but also why this praise is often qualified by surprise and fascination.