This Time with Feeling: Impunity and the Play of Fantasy in The Act of Killing

Zahid R. Chaudhary examines the documentary The Act of Killing (2012) to explore how perpetrators of the 1965–66 Indonesian mass killings maintain their sense of self and social standing. Rather than viewing the perpetrators' boastful reenactments of their crimes as simple psychopathy, Chaudhary utilizes psychoanalytic theory to investigate the 'affective economy' of impunity. He argues that the killers' ability to perform their atrocities—often with a sense of 'fun' or play—is not merely a lack of knowledge, but a specific distortion of self-knowledge facilitated by a state-sanctioned narrative that has never held them accountable.

Central to the paper is the role of disgust as a social regulator. Chaudhary posits that while liberal humanism often assumes that spectators will naturally feel horror or revulsion toward such acts, this reaction is socially mediated. By analyzing the film’s scenes—such as the infamous 'table' sequence where killers recall murdering victims—the author demonstrates how fantasy allows individuals to bypass the ethical constraints that usually govern human relations. The paper suggests that when disgust is absent or redirected, it enables violence; conversely, the 'mirroring' of this disgust by movements like Black Lives Matter can transform it into a powerful ethical imperative.

Chaudhary situates these individual performances within the broader geopolitical context of the Cold War. The Indonesian state’s official history, which cast the army as a savior against a 'communist threat,' provided the structural impunity that allowed death squad leaders to live openly as local figures. The documentary serves as an intervention by bringing these hidden histories to a global audience, yet the author cautions against the 'seductive myth' that the mere revelation of truth will automatically lead to justice. Instead, he emphasizes that the persistence of these violent fantasies requires a deeper understanding of how desire and power operate in the wake of genocide.