Watched two intriguing films over the last few nights that I felt linked in with the world I explored in "The Evil And The Pure." The first was "Kriemhild's Revenge," the second part of Fritz Lang's silent epic, "Die Nibelungen." In this one, a small group of German warriors make a doomed but valiant last stand against hordes of bloodthirsty Huns. The action scenes are still impactful, even though the film is crazily overlong, but what fascinated me was that the "heroes" are being attacked because they've stood by a cravenly killer, who not only stabbed an innocent man in the back in the first film, but kills a baby in this one!! Their justification is that he's part of their team and they stand by every member of their tribe. It's loyalty gone mad, and I can see why Hitler and his cronies ranked this as one of their favourite films -- it's basically the story of World War II in short -- evil man in position of power commits horrendous crimes but leads his followers into chaos and defeat because they refuse to condemn him out of a misplaced sense of loyalty.
The second film was "The Act Of Killing," in which elderly Indonesian executioners and torturers proudly boast about the people they've murdered and tormented, while we also get a look at modern gangsters who go about their business openly without any fears of comebacks, since the country is set up to reward them for their brutality. It's easy to look at this and take the view that Indonesians are a savage, uncivilised lot, but I don't think that's the case. I think you'll find mirror images of ther characters here in just about any country you care to name. The only difference in Indonesia is that they're not hypocritical about their thugs and power-hungry politicians, at least not in the same way that we in the West are. We have a tradition here of keeping up appearances, putting a respectable face on, no matter what we actually do. But, as I try to show in Evil, wickedness and ruthlessness is bubbling away all the time, just beneath the surface. And I think it's the duty of writers and film-makers to confront and expose that every so often, since if we don't admit and accept and analyse our flaws, we never stand a chance of overcoming them.