TEHRAN – American-British filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer’s 2014 documentary “The Look of Silence” will be reviewed at the Iranian Artists Forum on Monday.

The review will be held after a screening of the film scheduled for 5 pm. Culture scholar Navid Purmohammadreza will talk on the topic “Conquerors’ History, the Oppressed History”.

“The Look of Silence” is about the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66.

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 crew’s locations. 

Some shots consist of the man watching (what seems to be) extra footage from The Act of Killing, which includes a 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.

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 Italian online critic’s award (Mouse d’Oro), the European Film Critics Award (FEDEORA), as well as the Human Rights Nights Award.

It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 88th Academy Awards.

“The Look of Silence” received critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 96 percent 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 ‘The Act of Killing’.”

On Metacritic, the film has a 92 out of 100 rating based on 29 critics, indicating “universal acclaim.”

The film is a companion piece to Oppenheimer’s 2012 documentary “The Act of Killing”, which was reviewed at the Iranian Artists Forum last week. 

Photo: Inong in the documentary “The Look of Silence” by Joshua Oppenheimer.

MMS/YAW