I’d recommend The Jakarta Method, by Vincent Bevins, for a really excellent look at this topic. People in Indonesia were excited to join the world-stage in the third wave of modernization of government (third-world was not a pejorative term at the time). Of course, a rightwing coup put a stop to that and the west pillaged resources, as usual.
It’s an amazing documentary. But also quite horrifying. It’s quite disturbing having them describe and depict how they killed all those innocent civilians, who they suspected to be communists or left-leaning. It’s definitely worth a watch.
There is another film that came out two years later called The Look of Silence, it’s on the same subject by the same director. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it but I believe it is interviews with the friends and families of the victims of the killings after being shown The Act of Killing.
