Some atrocities are better known than others. Some are taught in schools, depicted in films and books, and some have holidays to commemorate them. Some are more palatable than others and some are more controversial than others. But the sad truth is that many some crimes against humanity are almost totally unknown. This is certainly the case with the atrocity depicted in Kenneth Willim’s short film, A Silent Truth. In fact, the silence and obscurity of the crimes depicted in this film are themselves the subject, rather than the atrocities themselves.
Instead of focusing in a straightforward way on the terrible crime, Willim has taken us into one of the many aftershocks that always accompany these sorts of events; the silence of those who lived through them. More specifically, we follow the story of a journalist who wants an older man to tell the tale of what happened when he was younger. But the older man does not want to speak. The silence of those who’ve lived through such events is one of the hardest things for outsiders to understand. This phenomenon was perhaps best captured in the classic First World War novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, when the protagonist, a German soldier has returned home from the front and does not know quite how to relate to the civilians who surround him. He says that many wanted him to talk about his experiences, but he had no way of doing so. But, he said, what was even more irksome were those civilians who did not ask him to speak because they claimed to understand what he was going through and why he could not speak. This puts outsiders in an impossible predicament: they can’t ask the others to speak and they can’t not ask them to speak by claiming to understand why they cannot speak. This is why soldiers and those who’ve suffered terrible events can really only speak to each other about them.
This is the situation the older man here finds himself in. He has remained silent for a long time and it is very difficult for him to speak to the journalist. But, the journalist is, finally able to convince the man to speak. Unlike the story above about the First World War, about which very little is unknown, this situation is not only unknown, the perpetrators are still free and out there in the world living their lives. As hard as it is for the older man to speak, he realizes that his silence is actually in a way robbing the victims of justice. And so he decides to speak.
I will not recount here the story that the man relates, and which Willim has filmed so well in his film. I will, instead, relate the facts of the situation as they are widely accepted to have happened. As a caveat, I will say that I am a reviewer of films and not a historian, and this cannot vouch for anything other than what has been widely reported and what I have seen in Willim’s A Silent Truth.
Firstly, the film focuses on atrocities committed against ethic Chinese Indonesians in 1998. In 1998 Suharto was still in power, but was about to resign. There were, in Indonesia, widespread economic issues, mass unemployment and food shortages. The ethnic Chinese livinf in Indonesia were seen by many as the scapegoats, and there was a rash of violence and demonstrations that ultimately left at least one thousand dead. There were reports of at least 168 rapes.
Again, I will not here relate the story that the older man relates to the journalist, but I will say that this is a powerful film that is well-shot with actors who I do not envy. They had to reenact scenes that no actual person should have had to live through and which must have been quite difficult for actors to have portrayed.
Willim is the writer, director and producer of this film and he should be commended for bringing this 20 plus event to the attention of a global audience. China is today seen by many in the west as a belligerent enemy that may well come into conflict with the United States and Europe over tensions surrounding Taiwan and other factors. But Willim’s film helps us to remember that we are all a fellowship of human beings and that no one deserves the kind of treatment we witness in A Silent Truth.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.