Calling the Shots: What Naza Says About Criminal Cinema

A documentary detailing Israel's massacre of civilians in Gaza is the latest film to give a voice to those who commit the atrocities - confronting viewers with some of the toughest questions: Are we still talking about the vulgarity of evil? When the prolific phrase was first used by philosopher Hannah Arendt, she described the white persona of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Now, in Naza, anonymous members of Atl

Are we still talking about the vulgarity of evil? When the prolific phrase was first used by philosopher Hannah Arendt, she described the white persona of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Now, at Naza, anonymous members of Israeli intelligence are discussing the remote execution of an attack on Gaza. Comparisons with Hitler's Germany, while understandable, are made by the subject itself. If they're mundane, it's kind of modern and strangely familiar. These are articulate, middle-class millennials. They say they are leftist and non-racist. In other words, they could be Guardian readers.

And yes, one says, they have been committing a genocide.

The work of directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Zor is breaking. But we've already been bombarded with first-hand accounts of people committing crimes — sometimes called criminal cinema. In 2013, director Joshua Oppenheimer released The Act of Killing, a stunning film featuring members of right-wing Indonesian death squads from the 1960s. It was highly praised. Since then, it has retained only a painful feeling associated with it.

Before that, Errol Morris made a documentary called Standard Operating Procedure, interviewing American soldiers who mistreated Iraqis at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Going into the drama, you might even include "Jonathan Glazer's Favorite Zone," where the commandant of Auschwitz lives happily with his wife and children. (Glaser is the executive producer of NAZA, by the Guardian.)

There are questions in all of them. To begin with: Who commits crimes against humanity? The answer can be uncertain. Naza is full of Tel Aviv high-flyers who justify some of the horrific attacks on October 7th. But American soldiers are standard operating procedure for ordinary grunts in the "war on terror." Meanwhile, in The Act of Killing, aging street thugs recreate the murders of labor unions and teachers as action movies they imagine. Gorgeous blooms in the abyss.

Either way, what we see doesn't get out of our heads, even when we struggle to come up with an adequate response. The late critic Roger Ebert called the films "empathy machines". But these films short-circuit the machines. How can we empathize with people who seem unrepentant?

For some, infertility presents an even bigger problem. The Israeli government, among other threats, has raised the deprivation of Abraham's citizenship and force. But even for audiences far from the Middle East, the film is difficult to deal with. We may feel uncomfortable as we are reminded how safe our suffering is. We may even think of the most unfriendly word: complicity.

But criminal cinema is more than complicity. It's about trying to understand the agent. Oppenheimer discussed the task while discussing NAZA on the Jewish Currents podcast. "To understand crime as a human activity, we need to look at the humans who commit it."

Or do you understand enough mass murderers through what they do? In 2013, The Act of Killing also received critical acclaim. One influential figure in British documentary has publicly called it a "navel film". (Oppenheimer went on to make The Gaze of Silence about the victims.) And Naza has faced preemptive criticism from Palestinians, including the poet Musab Abu Taha, arguing that the past three years in Gaza have already been documented by Gazans. "It's all there," he posted on social media. "So what will this film add?"

In this reading, Naza is accused of giving the guilty a privilege - a true voice to those for whom perhaps the best platform is a trial in The Hague. And another question is both obvious and uncomfortable. What's in it for them anyway?

In this year's documentary Killing Anna, ex-Syrian army officers were discussed about the massacre of civilians by a university that pretended to be loyal to Bashar al-Assad. But most criminals are fully aware that they are being recorded. As such, we may expect a tearful confession. Not quite.

SOP torturers would come close every now and then, but only in between lots of dodging. As a further ethical complication, they were also paid for their interviews. With The Act of Killing, however, Oppenheimer discovered a more disturbing truth—his butchers were happily unrepentant. (They also believed that, as an American, he endorsed leftists.) Interviewees spoke of "the opposite of shame." That word complicity comes up again. Should a filmmaker do this?

But the thing is, lack of shame has a price. "War crime is defined by the victors," says an Indonesian gangster in The Act of Killing. "I'm a winner, so I can make my own definition." In these films, this definition goes hand in hand. Oppenheimer did this by giving his subjects the freedom to reveal their nightmares. In barren journalism of the highest quality, the confession of guilt is presented with an apparently howling lack of conscience.

Palestinian reports of attacks on Gaza have been wrongly ignored. Netanyahu's government's response to this Israeli version is telling. Aside from the directors' threat, a parody reject, the recently launched Naza: The Real Story is desperately trying to take back control of the story.

And the "complicity" of a director is often necessary. In 2017, Peyman Susan Adriana saw Chilean documentary filmmaker Liste Orozco interview her aunt, who was rumored to have worked for dictator Augusto Pinochet's secret police. When it turns out that she did, the aunt's frantic response to what she sees as a family betrayal is crucial to the story. Now here are barren revelations from interviewees who probably would never have spoken to Abraham and Zor if they weren't Israeli.

But beyond that - the fact that they are is also proof that Israelis can still say no to this Israel. Vital as they are Elsewhere, the real power of these films lies in the communities they depict. Indonesia's official history echoed stories of gangsters bravely ridding themselves of communists. Oppenheimer made the film available for free there. Naza now faces the belief that the crimes are only related to the "bad apples" of the far right. In criminal cinema, a common thread leads us to unseen hierarchies—politicians and generals whose lies to their own people have now been exposed.

To put it this way, hope almost shines. Still, these movies advise caution. Hollywood movies are systems for catharsis. Here, it is elusive. Near the end of Murder, the most disturbing subject begins to vomit, as if his body is trying to expel his past. But nothing comes up. And now we watch Naza and know that what happened in Gaza is happening today.

No, the hope that the perpetrator cinema gives us is clear. Appearing with Oppenheimer at the Jewish Currents giant, Palestinian filmmaker Rami Younes recalled meeting his country's film giant, director Hani Abu Asad, whose films have been accused of humanizing the Israeli police. "What do you think happens when you demonize your enemy?" Abu Asad said. "What's happening to you?"

Usually "humanization" requires a soft focus. But NAZA and The Act of Killing remind us that being human requires the capacity for evil. They also offer a fighting chance. The genocidal refuses to see his enemy as himself - to really look at them. However, with criminal cinema, we can look hard at people with whom we do not like to share anything - and say that we are both human, even if this makes us monsters.