The Look of Silence (2014)

In the first part of his documentary on the events after G30S/PKI in 1965, director Joshua Oppenheimer interviewed some of the men who did the killings. This movie is the second part of the documentary and the director put a relative of one of the murdered victims to interview the 'killers'.

I think the intention of making this documentary was to find out what really happened. What I learned at school (late 70's - early 90's) was how cruel the PKI had been (PKI = Indonesia Communist Party) and how the army under General Soeharto's leadership could sweep the movement quickly. From my aunt I heard the stories after the event, that so many people had died because 'communists' had had to be killed. She told me how her uncle had been taken to be tortured and killed. They lived in Solo at that time.

This documentary was about the massacre in Sungai Ular (Snake River), Deli Serdang, North Sumatra. A 44 year-old man named Adi was in search of what really had happened to his brother Ramli.

By sending a victim's brother to interview the doers, to ask them what had happened and then sort of accuse them, ask them questions like 'Do you regret what you have done?' and 'Have you realized that you were wrong?' - of course they became angry and stopped the interview. I prefer the director's approach in making The Act of Killing (the first part of the documentary), where he asked them politely to reveal what had happened and not accused them and blamed them, for this was a sensitive issue.

In the last part of this movie, Adi went to this family to interview them. The father of the family, who had passed away, told Joshua several years ago about how he led the massacre. He also had written a book about it - complete with illustrations, titled 'Embun Berdarah' and gave a copy to Joshua. His wife and sons claimed that they knew nothing about what their father did at that time and did not want to talk about it. What happened to Ramli was told in that book. There were so many victims, the number given was around 500-600 but the father of the family could gave a detailed account of what had happened to this particular victim.

Adi was born in 1968 so he never saw his brother. Perhaps he grew up listening his mother's stories about what had happened when Ramli had being taken away. We can see when he interviewed the doers how he was emotionally bitter.

There was a scene of a school-teacher taught his young pupils about the G30S/PKI history. Seeing the pictures of the president and vice-president hanging on the wall, this scene was recent. They were the pictures of SBY and Boediono (2009-2014).The teacher told the pupils how cruel the PKI was. They had kidnapped the army generals and cut their faces with razor and gouged their eyes out. When I was still at school, my history teachers never mentioned those gory details. The textbooks only also said that they had been tortured. I first learned the details of the tortures when I had to watch this G30S/PKI film made in 1984 by PPFN and later more horrible details in 1988 book 'Siapa Menabur Angin Akan Menuai Badai' (borrowed it from a neighbour). But then I heard that the tortures had never happened. The PKI shot the generals to death but never tortured them. So why this teacher still told the pupils that the army general had been tortured? Whichever was true, those pupils were elementary school kids and they should not be told gory details. Like a censorship for a movie, the teacher should know if the kids can handle such stories. It's useless to blur inappropriate images on TV if you tell sadistic stories to your pupils.

Delon Romy Ils se sont tant aimes

One of the most beautiful books in my collection. The photographs are very well reproduced. As we can see from the title, this books is about the moving love story between two greatest actors: Alain Delon and Romy Schneider: from how they first met for the production of Christine (1958), became engaged, separated in 1963, and met again in 1968 for La Piscine. The tragic death of Romy's son in 1981, led the legendary actress to her own's. The book is easy to read (especially after reading Henri Rode's book about Delon).

144 pages. Published in 2009. Dimensions: 29,7 x 22,7 x 1,5 cm

From 'La fuite du bonheur' chapter. Page 118.

Le fascinant Monsieur Delon (Collection Tetes d'affiche)

The binding is poor -my copy of this book has already fallen apart- and many of the b/w pictures (scattered throughout the book) are not well reproduced, but compared to other books about Delon, this one has interesting contents because journalist Henry Rode really interviewed him. The highlight must be the chapter called 'Delon Express' where we can read the actor's thoughts on certain things. Not an easy reading book, though.

There is also a part about imaginary dialogues if Alain Delon met Pablo Picasso.

Publish in 1982. Dimensions: 20,4 x  14,8 x 2 cm.352 pages.

From chapter 13: Delon express

From chapter 6: Elles: Romy, Nathalie, Mireille

Alain Delon et Romy Schneider : Les fiancés de l'éternel

As you can guess from the title, this book is about the story of Alain Delon and Romy Schneider.

Compared to other books with the same subject, I found this one is quite disappointing because there are not many new infos. Furthermore, there are only 9 photographs, incl. the cover.  The photographs are grouped in the middle of the book.

At the end of every chapter, there is a sketch of Delon kissing Romy.

The letters are quite big, with big line spacing, so in all, the book could be squeezed into a thinner one, at a cheaper price.

Book dimensions: 22 x 14,1 x 2 cm. Published in 2010. 284 pages.

Charles Chaplin - My Autobiography

Charles Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was a genius who has contributed lots of joy to the world. He was a comedian, director, writer, actor, composer, producer... a true performer.

His movies are still entertaining, even to my 11 year-old niece. In this autobiography he wrote about his poor childhood, how he joined the entertainment industry, how he made successful movies and founded the United Artists and how the American public were turned against him, accusing him as a communist. He wrote about famous people he met, like Gandhi, Einstein, Churchill, HG Wells, his partner Douglas Fairbanks, etc. 

After the released of the first film with sound, the Jazz Singer, in 1927; he still insisted to make two more silent movies: City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) and both were successful. The next movie, The Great Dictator (1940), which he called an anti-nazi movie, was not as good as his silent ones. It was very funny how he portrayed the dictator, which looked a lot like Hitler: why they wore the same moustache? When you think about it, Chaplin wore it first. Why would a country leader wore the same moustache as a comedian? Was the style a hit in the era?

My favourite Chaplin films are the full-length ones: The Gold Rush, The Circus, and Modern Times. When I was buying this book, what I looking for was how he had gotten the ideas for them. So I am a little disappointed because he didn't wrote about all of them. He only wrote about several of his movies, while he had made so many. In all, this is an enjoyable book and a good inspirational story about a poor boy from a destitute neighbourhood in London who became the world's favorite man. This book was first published in 1964, when he lived in exile in Switzerland. Only in 1972 he returned to the U.S.A to accept his Honorary Award from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

64-pages of pictures are grouped in the middle of this book. 

As he made his own movies, between them, he had to take break to look for ideas and inspirations. After City Lights (1931), he took a trip to the Orient with his brother Sydney, and he visited the island of Bali, between his trip from Singapore to Japan. He brought a camera along, because there was documentary films from this trip. It's available in YouTube and the year (it's said) was 1932.

Excerpt from the book about Bali:

It was Sydney who had recommended visiting the island of Bali, saying how untouched it was by civilization and describing its beautiful women with their exposed bosoms. These aroused my interest. Our first glimpse of the island was in the morning – white puff clouds encircled green mountains leaving their peaks looking like floating islands. In those days there was no port or airfield; one landed at an old wooden dock by row-boat.

We passed through compounds with beautifully built walls and imposing entrances where ten or twenty families lived. The farther we traveled the more beautiful the country became; silvery mirrored steps of green-rice fields led down to a winding stream. Suddenly Sidney nudged me. Along the roadside was a line of stately young women, dressed only in batiks wrapped around their waists, their breasts bare, carrying baskets on their heads laden with fruits. From then on we were continually nudging. Some were quite pretty. Our guide, an American Turk who sat in front with the chauffeur, was most annoying, for he would turn with lecherous interest to see our reactions – as though he had put on the show for us.

The hotel in Denpasar had only recently been built. Each sitting-room was open like a veranda, partitioned off, with sleeping quarters at the back which were clean and comfortable.

Hirschfeld, the American water-colour artist, and his wife had been living in Bali for two months and invited us to his house, where Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican artist, had stayed before them. They had rented it from a Balinese nobleman, and lived there like landed aristocrats for fifteen dollars a week. After dinner the Hirschfelds, Sydney, and I took a walk. The night was dark and sultry. Not a breath of wind stirred, then suddenly a sea of fire-flies, acre upon acre of them, raced over the rice-fields in undulating waves of blue light. From another direction came sound of jingling tambourines and clashing gongs in rhythmic tonal patterns. ‘A dance going on somewhere,’ said Hirschfeld; ‘let’s go.’

About two hundred yards away a group of natives were standing and squatting around, and maidens sat cross-legged with baskets and small flares selling dainty edibles. We edged through the crowd and saw two girls about ten years old wrapped in embroidered sarongs, with elaborated gold tinsel head-dresses that flickered sparklingly in the lamplight as they danced mosaic patterns to treble high notes, accompanied by deep bass tones from large gongs; their head swayed, their eyes flickered, their fingers quivered to the devilish music, which developed to a crescendo like a raging torrent, then calmed down again into a placid river. The finish was anticlimactic; the dancers stopped abruptly and sank bank into the crowd. There was no applause – the Balinese never applaud; nor have they a word for love or thank you.

Walter Spies, the musician and painter, called and had lunch with us at the hotel. He had lived in Bali for fifteen years, and spoke Balinese. He had transcribed some of their music for piano, which he played for us; the effect was like a Bach concerto played in double time. Their musical taste was quite sophisticated, he said; our modern jazz they dismissed as dull and too slow. Mozart they considered sentimental, and only Bach interested them because his patterns and rhythms were similar to their own. I found their music cold, ruthless and slightly disturbing; even the deep doleful passages had the sinister yearning of a hungry minotaur.

After lunch Spies took us into the interior of a jungle, where a ceremony of flagellation was to take place. We were obliged to walk four miles along a jungle path to get there. When we arrived, we came upon a large crowd surrounding an altar about twelve feet long. Young maidens in beautiful sarongs, their breasts bare, were queueing up with baskets laden with fruit and other offerings, which a priest, looking like a dervish with long hair down to his waist and dressed in a white gown, blessed an laid upon the altar. After the priest had intoned prayers, giggling youths broke through and ransacked the altar, grabbing what they could as the priests lashed violently out at them with whips. Some were forced to drop their spoils because of the severity of the lashings, which were supposed to rid them of evil spirits that tempted them to rob.

We went in and out of temples and compounds as we pleased, and saw cock-fights and attended festivals and religious ceremonies which took place all hours of the day and night. I left one at five in the morning. Their gods are pleasure-loving, and the Balinese worship them not with awe, but with affection.

Late one night Spies and I came upon a tall Amazon woman dancing by torchlight, her little son imitating her in the background. A young-looking man occasionally instructed her. We discovered later that he was her father. Spies asked him his age.

            ‘When was the earthquake?’ he asked.

            ‘Twelve years ago,’ said Spies.

            ‘Well, I had three married children then.’ Seemingly not satisfied with this answer, he added: ‘I am two thousand dollars old,’ declaring that in his lifetime he had spent that sum.

            In many compounds I saw brand-new limousines used as chicken-coops. I asked Spies the reason. Said he: ‘A Compound is run on communistic lines, and the money it makes by exporting a few cattle they put into a saving fund which over the years amounts to a considerable sum. One day an enterprising automobile salesman talked them into buying Cadillac limousines. For the first couple of days they rode around having great fun, until they ran out of gasoline. Then they discovered that the cost of running a car for a day was as much as they earned in a month, so they left them in the compounds for the chickens to roost in.’

           

Balinese humour is like our own and abounds in sex jokes, truisms and play on words. I tested the humour of our young waiter at the hotel. ‘Why does a chicken cross the road?’ I asked.

            His reaction was supercilious. ‘Everybody knows that one,’ said he to the interpreter.

            ‘Very well then, which came first, the chicken or the egg?’

            This stumped him. ‘The chicken – no –‘ he shook his head, ‘-the egg – no,’ he pushed back his turban and thought a while; then announced with final assurance: ‘The egg.’

            ‘But who laid the egg?’

            ‘The turtle, because the turtle is supreme and lays all the eggs.’

Bali then was a paradise. Natives worked four months in the rice-fields and devoted the other eight to their art and culture. Entertainment was free all over the island, one village performing for the other. But now paradise is on the way out. Education has taught them to cover their breasts and forsake their pleasure-loving gods for Western ones.

Alain Delon - en plein soleil

Published in 2012, this hard-covered book is smaller than I expected : 16,8 x 24,6 cm. The paper used are in good quality, though, so the photographs - which are quite a lot - have been very well reproduced. In 144 pages (not include covers), the book by Christian Dureau tells the story of Alain Delon: from his troubled childhood, his days as a marine in Vietnam, how he began to work as an actor, how he worked with great directors like Rene Clement, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville. Quotes from Delon himself are scattered throughout, in blue letters, inserted at right places for the readers' benefit. Most of his memorable movies' synopsis are also there, separated in pale pink backgrounds.

This book followed his steps as an actor, so if you are looking for juicy gossips you will not find them here. Even the Markovic affair was only told in 1 paragraph. [In Bernard Violet's Les Mystères Delon , an unauthorized Delon biography, the affair dominated several chapters.]

contents

A scan from The Sicilian Clan days. Click to zoom in.

The Act of Killing (2012)

Had wanted to watch this since I heard it was nominated for Oscars, but never had the time since I knew it was almost 3 hours long. This movie was banned here, but it's available for free in YouTube.

When I was watching the movie, I thought it was some kind of 'behind the scene' in the making of a movie called 'Arsan dan Aminah'. American director Joshua Oppenheimer chatted with the main actors, asked them to tell the 1965 events in their own words. I had heard such stories (but the ones happened in Central Java) but from the victims' relation (the closest one was my aunt, who was almost in tears when she told me what had happened to her uncle, her favourite uncle - I supposed), never from the 'killers'. I just read articles at internet, that 'Arsan and Aminah' had been never released, that that the actors perhaps would sue Mr Oppenheimer. A bit strange despite the fact that there was a scene of an interview about 'Arsan and Aminah' with a local TV, with the poster as a background. I was appalled watching this, because the TV journalist put a happy face in the interview.

Anwar Congo, one of the main player in this documentary, was a member of Pemuda Pancasi1a. He was young and ardent in 1965. When he heard about how this communist party (PKI) murdered the top army generals, with his friends he struck back the PKI members and their branches; even though he lived in North Sumatra. Many people at that time belonged to organizations or parties and PKI was one of the biggest. Those who lived far from Jakarta usually didn't know anything and were caught, jailed, tortured and murdered because of a tiny connection to PKI. I had heard there were cases of mistaken identity, that they got the wrong person, but it made no different. [The Javanese people, for instance, often has a name of one word only. Two persons with the same name and they got the wrong one or they got both, the fate of the name's bearer was the same.] It was mentioned in the movie that they who had money could buy their freedom (it was true). At that time Anwar Congo believed that he did the right thing. He showed the director how he used garrote for execution. He got sick in the end of the movie, perhaps filled with remorse; unlike his other friend.

There were scenes when the Chinese retailers were being coerced for money and I wonder if the government could do something about it. There was also a candidate for people's representative (DPR) who thought how he could gain more money for himself if he won; not for the people's prosperity.

In President Soeharto's era, there was this movie called Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G 30 S PKI. It was released in 1984 and I was 11 year-old. My teacher told us, the pupils, to watch this movie and I went together with my father. It was a long movie, divided into 2 parts: First part when the PKI plotted to kill the generals and went on with the kidnapping, tortures and murders. Second part when Letjen Soeharto eradicated the traitors. The tortures scenes made me sick and years later I found out that the UK classified films according to their contents, such as nudity, profanity, violence. Like a movie with one (or two?) f**k word will get a 18+ certificate. So when I was forced to watch such violence like in the PKI movie, by my government, I wonder if I could sue somebody... Those same people who always boasting this country was famous of its eastern polite manners.