Issue 42
Notebook

Death on Screen: Self-Representation and Performativity in 'The Act of Killing' and 'The Look of Silence'

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  • Jordi Revert Gomis
Jordi Revert Gomis
Universitat de València
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63700/1395

Published 2026-07-31

Keywords

  • The Act of Killing,
  • Joshua Oppenheimer,
  • Indonesian genocide,
  • Performative documentary,
  • The look of silence,
  • Self-representation,
  • Representation of violence
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Revert Gomis, J. (2026). Death on Screen: Self-Representation and Performativity in ’The Act of Killing’ and ’The Look of Silence’. L’Atalante. Journal of Film Studies, (42), 79–92. https://doi.org/10.63700/1395

Copyright (c) 2026 L'Atalante. Journal of film studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The documentary diptych comprising The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence constituted a turning point in the past decade in the recovery of the memory of the Indonesian genocide that took place in 1965 and 1966. At the same time, both films, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, marked a watershed in the evolution of the performative documentary and the representation of violence in the discursive practices of non-fiction memory construction. This article explores the strategies these films employ to incorporate the testimonies of perpetrators and victims, with a particular focus on self-representation, performativity and the role that television and film play in the narrative of the genocide. To this end, it presents a textual analysis of key sequences grounded in visual semiotics, with the aim of determining the effects these strategies have on documentary discourse and assessing their significance in a context of growing pressure in Indonesia to recover its historical memory.

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