The Act of Killing

Former executioner Anwar Congo

“For killing people trousers should be thick,” says Anwar, the “star” and chief exhibit in this bizarre documentary. He’s the retired head executioner of an Indonesian death squad reliving his glory days garrotting hundreds if not thousands of “communists” (ie anyone in the way) with a piece of thick wire in the mid 1960s. And though now knocking on a bit he shows us how he did it, in the place he did it, a cement yard out the back of what looks like a restaurant. Bizarre though this is, there is more to come, because what the makers of this film have done – not sure if it was their idea or … Read more