Three great documentaries to stream

The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we select three nonfiction films—classics, overlooked contemporary documentaries, and more—that will reward your time.

“The Look of Silence” (2015)

Stream it on Freevee and Netflix. Rent it on Apple TV.

Director Joshua Oppenheimer, whose first feature film “The End” opens in December, caught the attention of the film world with “The Act of Killing” (2013), in which he invited self-proclaimed “gangsters” who had slaughtered opponents in the mid-1960s the Indonesian military regime to re-enact their murders. The murderers take part in the reenactments with obvious joy, leaving the viewer with a disturbing image of how easily brutality can be rationalized and suppressed.

Arguably one flaw of the film is that it never fully acknowledges how the conceit may have encouraged the gangsters to show off. We should be horrified at how openly they brag about torture and strangulation, but the presence of a camera – and sets and make-up – cannot be discounted as a factor in their behavior. Oppenheimer’s superior follow-up, The Look of Silence, presents things more clearly and in some ways raises the more pressing question: Since the supporters of violence still hold political power in Indonesia, the families of the victims and the families of the murderers live on theirs Side side by side. How do you deal with the knowledge that your neighbors are former executioners?

The central character in “The Look of Silence” is Adi Rukun, an optician whose older brother was among those murdered. In more ways than one, Adi tries to get the killers to see clearly. In a chilling scene, he tests the vision of a man identified as the leader of a village death squad. As Adi tries out different lenses (“Is this better?”), he presses the man about his past and the fact that he still instills fear in others. Adi learns that his uncle guarded prisoners who were brought to be killed. The uncle downplays his role in her death; He says that if he had refused, he too would have been accused of being a communist – a label which, as we know, was freely used as a pretext for the executions. (Early in the film, we see that an anti-communist version of history is still being taught in schools.) Perhaps the most powerful scene comes near the end, after a man confesses to several murders and drinking human blood, his daughter bidding a friendly farewell Adi. “Please forgive my father,” she says. “Think of us as family.”

“Film Worker” (2018)

Stream it on Kino Film Collection. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home and Google Play.