This undoubtedly constitutes a contradiction, whether history should be forgotten or remembered.
To give a typical example, for the Chinese, the Nanjing Massacre cannot be forgotten. We must tell everyone the truth tirelessly, lest this period of history be forgotten and misunderstood, but for a certain revolution , But we choose to downplay it and don't want to mention it again. Even if someone digs it out, we have to seal his mouth. Therefore, history has always been determined by the subjective consciousness of those in power. The history we know is only the history filtered by the writers. It is a one-sided history. "Zhixingli" is equivalent to farting.
"The Image of Silence" is about a hidden history in Indonesia. Indonesia was dictated by the military in 1965, and all opponents were classified as GD. They were massacred, and millions of people died tragically. Ramli was one of them. The film uncovered this huge scar through the conversation between the deceased’s brother Adi and the murderers. However, these murderers did not respond to the pain of others caused by them. , But has the past really passed in such a daze?
The victim's family can't make it through. The beginning of the film is that the deceased’s mother bathes his father. His father is skinny, like those African children suffering from hunger. He has been suffering from a serious illness since he was a child. Now he is deaf and dumb, his eyes can’t be opened, he is still a lame man, and he can’t take care of himself at all. In addition to being able to sing the song "You are too sexy, I can't resist". With such a patient at home, plus the loss of his son at an early age, he watched his son be taken away by the murderer and never returned. You can imagine how painful and difficult this family was. Fortunately, Adi was born two years after Ramli's death. A consolation. But Ramli's death was forgotten? Absolutely not, the mother always missed her son, she said, memory will only make me sad, but he is my son, I miss him.
With the help of Joshua Oppenheimer, the awe-inspiring director, his younger brother Adi also delved into history and sought the truth based on his mother’s miss for his elder brother. He asked many murderers and let more people know about it. What a chilling attitude of these sinners.
In school, the history taught by teachers is like this. GD is cruel. They have no faith. They kidnapped six generals, dug out the generals’ eyes with a blade, and broke the generals’ necks like a chicken. That's why the government wants to suppress GD.
The first interviewee, Inong, also held the same view. He was the leader of the village assassination team. He also added that GD had sex with other women. These became the reason for their massacre. They not only killed people, but also drank human blood. , Saying that drinking human blood will not go crazy, drinking human blood can be fearless, so they cut off the woman's chest and wiped off GD's neck without any hesitation, and they really became a group of inhuman beasts. When Adi clarified that these are lies, he said that these questions are too profound. I don’t like profound questions. I don’t like to talk about politics. And you always talk about politics. I don’t know anything about politics. The conversation ended with the excuse of rushing to the temple.
The second interviewee was Amir Siahaan, the commander of the Snake River Death Team. He said that he could not be held accountable for this. He still had leaders above him. The third was the Secretary-General of Komando Aksi organization, which could be regarded as Amir’s leader. He said that the massacre was a spontaneous mass movement because the people hated GCism. When Adi questioned the rationality of the term "spontaneous", he said that he did not know the legislature's definition of "spontaneous". He just did what he should do. He also said that this is politics. Politics is the process of achieving ideals. If you don’t want the killing to happen again, then you have to change and you have to let go of the past.
There is no doubt that Adi’s approach is to put himself in danger, even his family, it has a wife and children, and those murderers are still in power, it is likely that Adi’s actions will be regarded as a kind of GD The resurgence of the ashes, to be suppressed. From this point of view, the cost of Adi's pursuit of the truth may be huge, unimaginable, and the same is true for director Joshua Oppenheimer.
On the other hand, it is precisely because of such fear that the truth has been concealed, and someone should stand up and face the truth. Adi asked his mother how it feels to live among these murderers who killed her son. The mother said she was silent when she saw these people. She believed in God’s justice and punishment would always come, but in fact they lived. Well, mother can only say that this is our destiny. Recognizing fate is the only thing that weak people can do. They don't even bother to complain, let alone go back to the root cause, so that the mother never knows that his brother is also one of the murderers.
The fourth interviewee was Adi’s uncle. He was in charge of guarding the prisoners. When Adi said that he was an accomplice in killing his nephew, he refused to admit it. He said he was just a guard, and he didn’t know the rest. He didn’t take a knife. There was no murder. When Adi asked him why he didn't intercede with those people for his nephew, he said he would obey the command. If he didn't listen, he would also be killed. Obviously, this uncle only knows that he lives and lives, he is greedy for life and fear of death. For the sake of his life, he can deny his parents. Even if he kills his nephew, it is very possible.
The fifth interviewee was an executioner. He was relatively old and depended on his daughter to take care of him. He also said about murder and drinking of human blood. He didn't feel guilty at all. On the contrary, he was like a hero. His daughter regarded him very much when he was young. I am proud to know that he killed a lot of GD, but I have never heard of such cruel and disgusting things as drinking human blood. It is still a little unbelievable, but from the perspective of a child, she said, please forgive my father, he is old. Up.
The last interviewee was the direct murderer who killed Ramli. He killed 32 people in total, wrote a book and drew illustrations, but has died. His family said that they didn’t know all of this. One of the sons also said that my mother was ill, which would make her mentally traumatized. When Adi played a video that restored the time, he was very emotional and said it would make him. Thinking of my father, I asked Adi to turn it off. Although the old mother finally came out and apologized, saying that they felt the same way, they repeatedly emphasized that his father is dead and he should be allowed to settle down.
This is still returning to the problem of being obsessed with the past. The former murderer is indeed old or dead, but it does not mean that the past no longer exists, or the sin has been wiped out by time. These people choose to escape history, and they can't even settle down to be a listener, to repent and reflect. They can be described as stubborn and self-deceiving.
Adi visited so many people, and it was no better than at the beginning, but it made it more painful, because he saw how unbreakable this false world was.
The last was the visit of Kemat, the survivor of the incident. He escaped on the night he was about to be killed. Now he still has lingering fears. He said to Adi's mother, "Forget it, and throw the pain to God."
Everyone is saying that they have forgotten. When people know the whole cruel truth, how can they really forget it? The pain has been deeply rooted in their hearts. When the murderers are still at large and do not know how to repent, where are they? If you can say forget and forget, the hatred has melted into the blood and can no longer be eliminated.
At the end of the film, in the palm of Adi’s mother, there are a few jumping beans jumping around. She said to the jumping beans, "You don’t want to leave, aren’t you tired? Go to sleep. I can’t see you. Are you there? I want to see you." , Are you really there? As if talking to his dead son.
Jumping beans became her spiritual sustenance and the home of her pain.
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