The Act of Killing (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary     I hope none of you live in close proximity to mass murderers, but, if you're wondering what it would be like, watch this movie.

In the 1960's, Indonesia had a military coup.  The new rulers immediately embarked on a campaign against the "communists", but really, anybody they felt disagreed with them.  They hired local gangsters to head up death squads because there were just so many people to kill.  Fast forward to the present and these death squad leaders are still hanging around, not being prosecuted, living out their lives without a single care in the world.  The filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer, sat down with two of the most prominent killers, Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, and asked them to make a movie about what it was like for them.  Congo and Koto took to the idea enthusiastically, recruiting friends, neighbors, and strangers to pretend to be communists on film.  Koto also decided to be in drag, for no apparent reason.  Maybe he just wanted to feel pretty. 

The result is one of the most fascinating and horrific looks inside the minds of killers.  They describe their most preferred methods of dispatching other human beings, laugh about the revisionist history that came later, all while scripting choreography for a dance number.  There are interviews with the current leader of the largest paramilitary group, Pancasila Youth, and with other influential members of the Indonesian government then and now.  For my money, the current Pancasila Youth leader may be the most evil sonofabitch walking around.  During a break from filming the recreation of when the burned and slaughtered an entire village, this guy started talking about his favorite rape victims:  14-year-old girls.  Another man cheerfully recounts how he went down the street and stabbed every native Chinese person he saw, including his girlfriend's father, before pushing him into a ditch and hitting him with a brick.

The only one who shows a glimmer of remorse is Anwar Congo, a man who killed possibly up to one thousand people.  He has experienced nightmares his entire life of the faces of his victims and becomes physically sick during some of the re-enactments.  The rest are better at justification, perhaps, or maybe they just don't feel anything. 

The other thing I thought was interesting was that half the crew in the credits is listed as Anonymous, I'm guessing to prevent reprisals once the film came out.  It's clear that the people being filmed though it would be an entirely different animal.  I can only imagine what they thought when (if) they saw the final product.

This is definitely the frontrunner in this category, with The Square being the dark horse.