- 12 Jan 2017 09:44
#14762495
The two most memorable documentary films on my mind would be The Act of Killing and Grizzly Man. The Act of Killing focuses on a man named Anwar, and some of his old death squad buddies, who all took part in murdering thousands of people each during the state-sanctioned, US-backed killing in the 1960s of over one million civilians in Indonesia: ethnic Chinese, suspected Communists, other minorities, political opponents, etc. The film is surreal because Anwar largely lives in his own private fantasy world where he sees himself as a hero and he literally fantasizes about how the literal thousands of people he helped personally kill are grateful to him for having killed them and having "saved" their souls. He and a number of his old buddies reenact various scenes from memory when they tortured people to death. There's a particular moment in the film where Anwar actually realizes the gravity of all his actions, and his reaction makes it all the more disturbing in a film that is already disturbing enough.
Grizzly Man is about an animal rights activist who spends months at a time over the course of many years trying to live among grizzly bears in Alaska, and ultimately pays the price for his stupidity, along with his girlfriend who didn't want to be there. It offers a fascinating glimpse of up-close encounters with the bears in footage he took and a lot of it is pretty stunning. It's directed by Herzog and it's one of his more memorable ones to me.
"I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert."
"Well, that's for me to know and you to find out."
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