infudibulum

Enjoyed this film but not sure why

It's honest film making, made with love and ideas Explores loneliness, desire, desperate in some places doesnt try to be profound It's diverse, which is nicely done and well done

Also it was engaging and good use of closeups and the atmosphere of dusty desert country with some lovely and imaginative composition, without being over done.

Breaking bad, Paris Texas, Chicken... not sure but will definitely think about it - for a bit

I would say a good watch and well done to the director, thank you - enjoyable watch with some uncomfortable scenes that I cant explain - that's a good thing I think.

I was surprised this got such good reviews already. The film is based on gratuitous violence, and there's many plot holes you could drive a wagon thru - or is it bad editing? And the language was over the top too. The use of the C word - a bit like Tarantino shock tactics? The film also had a sense of Coen Bros about it but the humour just didn't work. I didn't realise there was supposed ot be humour in the film - maybe I'm getting too serious.

I found the film an uncomfortbable but compelling watch and the ending summed it all up for me - disappointing and lacking depth.

Act of Killing I bought with some trepidation and settled down on my own to watch it (and watched again immediately after with the Josh/Werner Herzog background discussion - rather the film background to the discussion). Next day I bought Look of Silence. Watched it next night both without and with the background discussion. I was mesmerised (and still am), and so many questions come to mind.

The two films work well together, Act of Killing being more overview and focusing on the killers and the political structure/mob rule that is still in power. Act of Killing doesn't particularly explore how they got away with genocide (why the world turned a blind eye), but this is alluded to carefully and specifically in Look of Silence.

I could write so much because the two films together have provoked in me a profound perspective on human horror, which has gripped me most recently with what we see on the news with ISIS (Paris Masacre).

What are human beings capable of, and why is an individual able to make such choices? What are the structures that facilitate the most grotesque of human acts of wickedness upon one another. Do we all contain wickedness, does a killer lurk inside us all? Does fear itself propel the killers - kill or be killed? Are we (cells in the human organism) enacting our worst imaginable terror, excising evil, I kill therefore I am?

Josh Oppenheimer, I applaud your work. The sensitivity and attention to the finest detail employed in your work is, for me, beyond words. The cinematography, colours you choose, balance in composition. Even the subtitles were easy to read. Beautiful lingering pauses. You said of one still scene, a bridge, pale green, a river bank; you have no words to describe how this scene makes you feel, what the scene says. For me this scene (in LoS) is terrifyingly beautiful, sad, the weight of recent history hanging there in the stillness. Embodying the sadness and fear. I love that still scene.

Superb, I do not have the words to describe what your films say to me... I will think about them for a long long time, and watch them again.