The Act of Killing *****

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Co-directors: (Anonymous Indonesian), Christine Cynn
Year: 2012

This is a masterpiece of the documentary film medium. The best piece of filmmaking that I've seen in 2013.

It is a terrifyingly frank look into the banal faces of evil.

We meet death squad executioners who in 1965-66 in Indonesia were responsible for hundreds and thousands of cold-blooded murders... war crimes for which their society praises them, and for which they have not seen any justice. The director captures an eery absurdity in these men who boast openly about their sadism, and invites them to direct genre scenes reenacting their bloody exploits. They are self proclaimed film lovers who attribute their cruelty to the inspiration of Hollywood films and they are giddy for a chance to perform scenes that reveal how they see their crimes and how they suppress their own consciences. It is a dark and bleak look at the humanity of men who committed crimes against humanity, yet it does not forgive them. It just shows these terrifyingly ignorant fools either denying or possibly just beginning to face the evil inside them.

The director has aptly described his film as a "fever-dream" but Werner Herzog had this perfect insight on the film... "Joshua Oppenheimer is not the inventor of the casual and unbelievable surrealism that seeps into this film from all corners. It does not come from him, it is not imposed by him. You watch this and you know that in a way, it's real. And yet you cannot believe that reality can take forms as crazy and weird as that."

Instructions Not Included *

Original Title: "No se Aceptan Devoluciones"
Director: Eugenio Derbez
Year: 2013
Writers: Guillermo Ríos, Leticia López Margalli
Cinematographers: Martín Boege, Andrés León Becker

Sadly this script is a mess and the direction didn't help. The film meanders, with pointless scenes and characters who's actions don't follow their motivations. It's set up as a comedy but doesn't work as one, and suddenly at the end tries to pull your heartstrings as a tragedy but it didn't earn a single moment of laughter or sadness. Just inept filmmaking, except for the cinematography, sets, costumes... Story was not well thought out and there is no sense of pace for the plot arc nor for individual scenes. None of the characters are fleshed out in a real way, not even the two main characters really get beyond one dimensional types.

I've seen much better from Mexican cinema. See "Matando Cabos" instead.