In a word from the director added to the beginning of the film, Josh Oppenheimer rather fatuously assures us that really evil people only exist in the movies, and that most of the great crimes of history were committed by folks like you and me. Of course we all know there are such cases - Nazi officers who believed they were doing their duty, participants in the Milgram experiments. But that's now what we are shown: what we are shown is already pretty ruthless self-styled "gangsters" used by their government to carry out a bloody job. These are not ordinary folks caught up in the web of circumstances.
The film is supposed to show us one of these "gangsters," its central character, coming to realize how awful what he has done is. IMDb puts it this way: "Most dramatically, the filmmaking process catalyzes an unexpected emotional journey for Anwar, from arrogance to regret as he confronts, for the first time in his life, the full terror of what he's done."
It's not clear whether Joshua Oppenheimer believed this, but if he did, the narcissistic Anwar Congo took him in. Congo didn't realize anything except that he had been given a chance to be in a movie with the dramatic role of a lifetime. Think of the moment that's supposed to exemplify this supposed dawning of conscience: Congo says something like "Did my victims feel as bad as I did in that scene?" and Oppenheimer, off screen, replies that they felt worse, because Congo knew he was only in a movie, and they knew they were really going to die. That's *exactly* the way the banal Hollywood screenwriters who wrote the films Anwar Congo so admired would have written the scene. So think again.
The film is supposed to show us one of these "gangsters," its central character, coming to realize how awful what he has done is. IMDb puts it this way: "Most dramatically, the filmmaking process catalyzes an unexpected emotional journey for Anwar, from arrogance to regret as he confronts, for the first time in his life, the full terror of what he's done."
It's not clear whether Joshua Oppenheimer believed this, but if he did, the narcissistic Anwar Congo took him in. Congo didn't realize anything except that he had been given a chance to be in a movie with the dramatic role of a lifetime. Think of the moment that's supposed to exemplify this supposed dawning of conscience: Congo says something like "Did my victims feel as bad as I did in that scene?" and Oppenheimer, off screen, replies that they felt worse, because Congo knew he was only in a movie, and they knew they were really going to die. That's *exactly* the way the banal Hollywood screenwriters who wrote the films Anwar Congo so admired would have written the scene. So think again.