And now I have also seen all the nominees in this category. Winter on Fire is my pick for winner.This is a companion piece to The Act of Killing from a couple of years ago. Director Joshua Oppenheimer once again takes viewers to Indonesia, this time focusing on Adi, an optometrist whose brother was murdered during the regime change. Adi goes around with the documentary crew to interview the men responsible, looking for any sign that they regretted killing so many people. It's a mixed bag.
I thought The Act of Killing was interesting because it was something I had never seen before, a part of the world's history with which I was not familiar. The Look of Silence is less interesting because it does feel very much like a retread. If this had been made first, I might have felt more for it. The idea of a man confronting the people who ordered his brother and a million other innocent people killed would have been more visceral. This even reuses footage from the first movie, showing Adi watching Act of Killing and filming his reaction. If I want to watch reaction videos I'll go to YouTube. I just felt like this was going back to the well one too many times.
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