The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| A Minute With: Gabriel Byrne’s TV Viking chieftain Posted: 27 Feb 2013 08:05 AM PST NEW YORK, Feb 27 — Irish actor Gabriel Byrne is going into battle as an 8th century Viking chieftain in History Channel's new nine-part scripted TV series "Vikings", starting on Sunday.
Byrne, best known as the sympathetic therapist Paul Weston in HBO's series "In Treatment" and movie "The Usual Suspects," spoke with Reuters about the importance of storytelling and why we're more similar to the Viking culture than we may realize. Q: What do you think will draw viewers to "Vikings"? A: It is a tremendously exciting story, and because it's the History Channel, there will be many facts, rituals, battles and costumes that people will be intrigued to learn about. I also think people will begin to see the connection between ancient history and modern politics. And you recognize that maybe technology has changed, and maybe the way we live our lives has changed, but essentially human beings are not that different. We still make love and we make war, and we still have the need to conquer. We just do it with more effective weapons now. Q: Women seem to have a prominent role in the series. What can you tell us about women's roles in the Viking culture? A: Generally speaking, I don't think people know a great deal about the Viking culture, apart from the label that is usually attached to them, either pillagers or deviants who came and brought back loot to Norway. It was an incredibly sophisticated, complex and layered culture. They had their own laws, many of which protected women. Viking women were able to rule kingdoms, divorce husbands, own land, and Vikings were very progressive in terms of the rights of women. Q: Why is storytelling important? A: Going back to ancient cultures again, there was always a man in every village, they're usually called shamans. And these men, sometimes women, took on the hopes, ambitions, fears, and the dreams of the tribe, so that the tribe could look at where they have come from and where they were going. And these shamans were the first actors. I think that when we look at something that's well acted and a story that's well told, it allows us to be a mirror of who we are as human beings and as a culture, and offers a glimpse of where we're headed. Q: Your 1997 autobiography, "Pictures in My Head" received rave reviews. Any plans for another book? A: Yes. When I finish my current project, I intend to go back to writing. I've been working on bits and pieces here and there, and now I am going to seriously sit down and write this book. I really admire anybody who writes for a living. It requires such discipline, and I think you could only really do it if you loved it. Q: You're often described as "brooding." What does that mean exactly? A: I really don't know. Maybe people think I'm very serious or something. I suppose I tend to play intense kinds of roles, and I think people are always looking for labels. Q: So what do you want to be when you grow up? No seriously, if you weren't an actor, you'd be...? A: I used to be a teacher, so maybe I would go back to teaching. If not, I would love to be a film critic or an investigative journalist. There was a long time when I didn't enjoy acting so much. When I look back at my early days, when I was just entering the theatre, I was happy, carefree. And then I reached a stage when I got sort of tired, and I lost my enthusiasm for doing it, and I think that happens to quite a few people. But for some reason that I quite can't even explain, I feel like I've gotten my appetite back for it now, and I approach it with a different kind of excitement...I feel like I'm in a very good space in my life. Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you? A: That I'm not really a brooding, intense person, actually almost the opposite. — Reuters |
| Film reopens old, long-buried wounds in Indonesia Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:46 AM PST JAKARTA, Feb 27 — Bejo Untung was a 17-year-old Indonesian schoolboy when armed soldiers came to his village in 1965, forcing him on the run for years until he was caught, tortured and jailed.
But now a documentary, "The Act of Killing," made by Texan-born director Joshua Oppenheimer, shines a light on that dark era, focusing on the death squads and torture that seem like a myth to the majority of the Indonesian population. Oppenheimer came up with the idea for the film while working on a different project in North Sumatra and found many relatives of the Indonesians he was talking to had been killed or imprisoned between 1965 and 1966 for trying to form a union. Most were too afraid to appear on camera to speak with him and suggested he talk to the killers. He took their advice and was horrified by his findings. "I ... encountered the boastful and shocking way that the killers were talking about what they did," said Oppenheimer in a telephone interview from Denmark. "That was for me the beginning of the journey. I realized, my goodness, how is it possible that the perpetrators of mass murder should talk loudly and boastfully and with smiles and laughter." The film, which runs for nearly two hours and won two prizes at this month's Berlin International Film Festival, re-enacts several murders and features a member of a death squad. DEATH SQUADS These death squads were operating systematically across Indonesia mostly in the late 1960s. Estimates put as many as one million people dead in a wave of violence after the aborted coup and purge of communists and alleged sympathisers. The main character in the film, Anwar Congo, was the one of the most feared death squad leaders in the area around the city of Medan in Sumatra. "I choke them to death, with steel wire around the neck," Congo says in the film, demonstrating in front of the camera how it was done. "And then pull it, sometimes with a pole. It's easier that way and less blood to clean." Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in October 2012, "The Act of Killing" took the Panorama Audience Award and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the recent 2013 Berlin International Film Festival but there have been no official screenings in the country where it took place. It has been shown in about 265 underground screenings, with secret invitations among small groups, but there is the fear that police might try to block the screenings. Still, some 10,000 have been to see it. The national police spokesman did not respond to questions asking whether the police would have tried to stop showings of the film. Young Indonesian had long been taught that communism was sadistic and evil and given no alternative view to that era. Until 1998 and the end of the iron rule of Suharto, the leader who took power shortly after the coup, viewing of a violent movie about how six generals and an officer were killed in the coup attempt was compulsory for schoolchildren. Even last year an attempt by Indonesia's human rights commission to look into the events surrounding the slaughter were effectively blocked by the government. "BABY RAT WAS MY FAVOURITE" Bejo Untung said the movie reflected accurately what happened to him and many others. Caught and imprisoned in 1970, Untung survived a year of torture — beating and electrocution — in prison and then a camp of several hundred men located in Central Jakarta. Three killed themselves while he was there, while others disappeared and were feared to have been killed. He spent eight years in jail without trial, including a stint of brutal forced farm labour. "Ten of us were forced to stay in a room which can only fit two," he said of his time in one prison. "We slept like layered cake, my head facing another inmate's toes so we could breathe while we slept." Most of the protein in his diet came from "anything that moved" in the fields, including frogs, rats, snakes and snails.
He learned to play guitar and piano and made his own instrument during breaks. To learn English, he copied a dictionary word for word onto cigarette papers. It wasn't until 1979 that political prisoners were released, in order to open the way for Indonesia to receive financial grants from the United States and European nations. Untung was a private music tutor until retiring and now heads YPKP 65, an organisation for victims of the brutality. For nearly six years, he marched in front of the State Palace, the seat of Indonesian government, every Thursday together with other human rights victims, demanding resolution. Now he and others want Indonesian history to be revised to reflect the truth of that period. Hilmar Farid, a Jakarta-based historian at the University of Indonesia, said this was a lesson — not to allow absolute power to take hold. "I doubt that the perpetrators will watch the movie and apologise ... Political interest plays a big part. There is a need to have mass consciousness, mass repentance if necessary." Oppenheimer said his film, which cost US$1 million (RM3.1 million) to make over five years, gave young Indonesians a different chapter to their nation's history. "From the history lessons in school, I only remember that they (the communists) killed and oppressed people, that's it." said 23 year-old graduate student Frederika Dapamanis after watching the movie. "I was sad and ashamed." There were also lessons for those older as well. "For Indonesians old enough to remember the genocide, the film makes it impossible to continue denying what everybody in that generation already knew. They are closer to the perpetrators than they like to believe," Oppenheimer said. "It's not because they're communist or Indonesian, but they are human beings," he said. "The movie, that's a hurtful truth. Indonesia has to speak out about this. The government has to apologise and the truth has to come out." — Reuters |
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