Critic’s Pick: ‘The Act of Killing’ is a disturbing look at a massacre

“The Act of Killing,” one of the most remarkable, most talked about documentaries of the year, is expanding its Los Angeles-area run starting Friday.

Director Joshua Oppenheimer accurately calls this “a documentary of the imagination,” and it takes more than a little getting used to.

It’s a mind-bending film, devastating and disorienting, that disturbs us in ways we are not used to being disturbed. An examination of a massive anti-Communist slaughter in Indonesia, it raises questions about the nature of documentary, the persistence of evil, and the intertwined ways movies function in our culture and in our minds.

Thursday is its last night at the Nuart in West Los Angeles, but it moves Friday to the Landmark in West Los Angeles, Laemmle’s Playhouse in Pasadena and Edwards’ University Town Center in Irvine.

UPDATE, Aug. 1 at 6:15 p.m.: The film is also playing at Downtown Independent in Los Angeles, Laemmle’s Claremont 5 and Cinefamily in Los Angeles.