The Look of Silence: Uh, holy shit. I don't know if anyone here has seen the Act of Killing, but this is its companion piece. Where the Act of Killing examines the deflections and self deceptions that the perpetrators of genocide (in Indonesia, killing communists en masse) use just to be able to live with themselves, the Look of Silence involves victims who have to live in a world surrounded by these deceptions. The victims are not willing to talk about it and sometimes deny that it ever happened, where the killers are often in positions of prominence. The striking thing is that the killers and the survivors (those who weren't labeled as communist but had parents or children killed) often live in the same community and the survivors will know, say, the mayor of a village who took part in the killings. There are a lot of gut punches here, and I don't know anyone who has more bravery than Adi Rukun, who is extremely direct in his questioning of the killers, often to the point where he was probably risking his life by asking these questions. I still haven't gathered my thoughts on it, but this and the Act of Killing are probably the two best documentaries I've ever seen.
Sicario: I didn't especially like this and I have a hard time pinpointing why. It is pretty well directed, especially one particular scene with a procession of feds driving to a confrontation at the Mexican border. The performances are also fairly good as well (especially Benicio del Toro), but there's a weird sense that you don't know what the fuck is going on most of the time, and this is shared by Emily Blunt's character, who is basically an audience surrogate with nothing to do. I know that's part of the point but it feels really unsatisfying to be subjected to. Maybe that is also part of the point. A big element of this is control and how a lot of people affected by the cartels lack control or agency over their situation and this point is made really bluntly by certain scenes, especially the ending. I feel like I got the point but didn't really enjoy sitting through it. I also didn't find many of the situations as tense as some made them out to be and a long sequence looks exactly like a CoD Modern Warfare mission. The portrayal was probably accurate as far as I know but it for some reason felt weird or cheap or something because it recalled certain in game sequences.
There's actually quite a bit I want to see right now. The next few months should be good movie-wise.
