BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Running time: 109 minutes

Seldom that the third film in a trilogy manages to equalize, or even surpass the second and the first. But that is not the case with the third film of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset trilogy. The last time we met Celine and Jesse, they were not a couple and it was 2004 in Before Sunset. Jesse was still married to his wife and accidentally bumps into Celine in Paris.

Loyal to the strength of the dialogue, Midnight examines what happened after the princess say "I do" at the altar. Was it a constant happy ending or is it just another beginning? How do they keep the spark alive? Does when two people grow together they grew apart? Now Celine and Jesse already a couple. They are together and having two girls, while Jesse still taking care his son from his previous marriage.

They are forty something couple, Jesse is now successful with being a writer and Celine consider trying to work for the government. Meanwhile Jesse wanted to move back to Chicago so he can be closer to his son. Rift happens between these two and we learns that keeping people together is more difficult than saying I love you.

Sure, they are happy, but they also realized that their happiness is another door to another problem, that their personal pursuit might come at the expense of their loved ones. There's a lot of talking here, just like the previous two movies but here lies the strength of the film. The witty, quirky dialogue is the one that can make you think, laugh, even cry. It bites and makes us realize, no matter how old you are, that love is a delicate thing worth fighting for. Here, Richard Linklater score a hat-trick where he can make three films equally good in quality.

MUD

Directed by: Jeff Nichols

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Sam Shepard, Reese Witherspoon

Running time: 130 minutes

Do you remember when your childhood is consisting of having real adventures in the wild instead of gluing your butt to play video games? Some might remember it and if your childhood spend with real adventures, you have a good one.

The third film from Jeff Nichols (after Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, all featuring Michael Shannon) still covers American South, this time set in a small town next to the Mississippi river and it brings us to the two main characters, Ellis (Tye Sheridan, known for his role in The Tree of Life) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) to a certain adventure that wil change their life forever.

The two boys set to a deserted island to find an old boat. But then they encounter Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a fugitive who claims the boat and on the run because he killed a man who hurt his lover, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). The boys are mesmerized by the heroic tale of Mud. They did not once being skeptical on the story at all.

Knowing that these boys can be useful, Mud sent them to the town to collect stuff so the boat can be flown and Mud can meet Juniper. As for Ellis himself, he has parents but they are not a good role model, so he sees a big brother figure in Mud, while Neckbone looks up to Ellis. The naive Ellis is about to learn the lesson of friendship, coming of age and love.

Nothing turns out as expected and it shows good acting from the three leading actors. The river play a major part here, representing adventure and chances, while supporting characters are also interesting like Neckbone's loving uncle, acted by Michael Shannon and Mud's so called father figure that change the course of events.

It is a film about Southerner in their homeland and it is a good story. I really liked it on how Nichols managed to tell a coming of age from the teenager's point of view. It reminded me of my own childhood, although I did not grew up next to a river, that adventure is out there!

THE ACT OF KILLING

Directors: Anonymous, Christine Cynn, Joshua Oppenheimer

Running time: 159 minutes

For most apolitical Indonesians, the new order regime remembered for its stability and progressive economical development. It was the peaceful time for most Indonesians when the prices of daily commodities were in the reach of most people, education were attainable and the middle class grows significantly. But little did they know that the so called "stability" was paved and paid by the bloods of their fellow brothers and sisters killed in the post 1965 pogrom in some areas in Indonesia. The merciless pogroms killed approximately hundreds of thousands of people, they were killed without even being trialed at all. They were killed simply because they were accused of being communist sympathizer. Was these accusations true remains to be unknown until today.

Why is it related to us now? It is because the whole new order regime was built upon the fear of communism and their sympathizers. Communist are equal with evil, cruelty and malice. The whole 30th September movement that killed six generals and an officer in 1965 was blamed solely on communist agents, who, according to the new order's government version, infiltrated the army to conduct those murders. So the new order regime keeps reminding people that communist sympathizers were wrong and "deserved" to be marginalized, even killed. The times were different back then, it was the cold war and the country was sharply divided over these things.

Most Indonesians do not know about these pogroms, some know it from hearsay and carefully edited history from the new order regime and off course it does not appear in the official history book Indonesians studied at school. The world according to the new order regime was as easy as black and white, black being the godless communist oppressors, and white being the brave anti communist, fighting the commies to unite the country. The ghost of communism need to be kept alive so the leaders of the new order regime can still hold their power.

But you cannot hid a rotten fish longer than three days, after the new order regime falls and what was once forbidden to be known by common people can now be accessed freely, people began to know each horrible aspects of the new order, not just the pogroms but also the silencing of political activist and many human rights abuses done in the name to preserve the so called "stability" of the new order regime. Some price you have to pay eh? What happened to the idea that a nation belongs to everyone without marginalization regardless of so many thing?

Then comes this chilling documentary from Joshua Oppenheimer that does not deal with the grand scale of what happened in Jakarta in 1965. In fact, if the whole 1965 pogrom thing were a picture, Oppenheimer just took a pixel of it in the form of Anwar Congo, a famous executor in Medan, North Sumatra, who claims have killed thousands of people.

Congo is an old man now, suitable to become a grandfather. He told his story of executing people with a smile. He also had his friends, fellow executioner, to tell his story. But this documentary is more than that, in a bitter turn, Oppenheimer gave these perpetrators their own "movie". He gives them a stage where these executioners re enact what they have done almost 50 years ago. It is very creepy but real.

What follows is how the "film" was made with the help of a famous paramilitary organization in Indonesia. As the film progressed, we see how these executioners questions what they have done and how the recent Indonesian political scene is keeping these people and their paramilitary organization, alive and well. We also see the bizarre film that Congo and friends trying to show, it felt like made by Alexander Jodorowsky and I wonder what the film looks like as a whole.

As a documentary The Act of Killing is successful in telling a gray and gruesome story without showing any real blood at all. It shows us, Indonesians, that we had a terrible past we must not repeat and shows international viewers that a documentary about an executioner like this is one of a kind. 

This documentary does not defend any ideology, it just shows us the banality of evil, the absurd cause on why the killing happened and what the executioners felt, do they feel some guilt or can they sleep well at night. After seeing this, you just realized that what Congo had done is just a tiny pixel in a big picture from Indonesia's troubling (and bloody) past. One cannot stop wondering what sort of picture consisted of these pixels. Are we able to look at it?