Gangsta's Paradise

A newly renewed subscription to Artforum magazine and finally something new to read. The article I read today describes a film made last year called 'The Act of Killing'. Particularly it focused on it's bizarre collaboration between mass murderer and film maker working together to create a psychological print of a fascist’s imagination.

Disturbing. I've run into people who fantasize inflicting pain and causing suffering, but this is for real. The masterminds, Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, are not Stalin cool cats of murder. Instead, they take on the guise of ken kesey and have a taste for the cinematic. Modeled after 60's era machismo film stars they set to live out a gorey fan fiction.

Originally, the film intended to document victims but oppression of the subject lingers. Politics would still put the subjects and film maker in danger, but in a bitter/sweet way the ego of these 'gangsters' would allow a feature length run down of their exploits. Particularly it seems there's lots of tie-dyed reanactments. Anwar and Herman relive their fantasies in a judgment free lens like some sort of quinceañera. A celebration of self except it isn't--a free fall into horror more honestly. A tale of how a display of what tickles someone can be seen as bloody madness and how these fascists are disconnected from what other people might consider appropriate.

I watched the trailer on youtube. It was in itself disturbing and made me want to throw up. Often it showed a scene of them just beginning to reenact a murder for a couple of seconds. Seeing the scenes in entirety seem hard to stomach.The most gut wrenching moment is after a reenactment, someone in a paramilitary costume tries to console a child for crying as if she was also acting because the scene is over.