“The Look of Silence,” a film that opens Aug. 14 at UNL’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, delivers a less shocking — yet just as compelling — companion piece to Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing.” Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man” continues through Aug. 20.
Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators during the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of 50 years of silence.
“Irrational Man,” is about a tormented philosophy professor who finds a will to live when he commits an existential act. Philosophy professor Abe Lucas, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is at rock bottom emotionally, unable to find any meaning or joy in life. Abe feels that everything he’s tried to do, from political activism to teaching, hasn’t made any difference. Soon after arriving to teach at a small town college, Abe gets involved with two women: Rita Richards, a lonely professor who wants him to rescue her from her unhappy marriage, and Jill Pollard, his best student, who becomes his closest friend.
While Jill loves her boyfriend Roy, she finds Abe’s tortured, artistic personality and exotic past irresistible. Even as Abe displays signs of mental imbalance, Jill’s fascination with him only grows. Still, when she tries to make their relationship a romantic one, he rebuffs her. Pure chance changes everything when Abe and Jill overhear a stranger’s conversation and become drawn in. Once Abe makes a profound choice, he is able to embrace life to the fullest again. But his decision sets off a chain of events that will affect him, Jill and Rita forever.
The Motion Picture Association of America has rated “The Look of Silence” PG-13 for thematic material involving disturbing graphic descriptions of atrocities and inhumanity and “Irrational Man” R for some language and sexual content.
For more information, including show times, go to http://www.theross.org or call 402-472-5353.
