‘Silence’ a further look at Indonesian massacres

In a long history of moviegoing, I’ve seen few films as harrowing to watch as Joshua Oppenheimer’s 2012 documentary, “The Act of Killing.” The director’s followup, “The Look of Silence,” is nearly as powerful, but marginally less horrifying, at least for those who’ve seen the first film — they know what to expect.

The subject is the killing of from half a million to a million Indonesians in 1965-66, following an attempted coup that eventually led to the ouster of President Sukarno. The victims were labeled communists, a term that was stretched to include intellectuals, union officials and anyone else the army disliked.