BALIBO
Director: Robert Connelly
Australia 2009
Review by Maire Leadbeater
When the movie ‘Balibo’ was shown in East Timor audiences were in tears to see a hidden part of their history on the big screen. Despite knowing the story of the 1975 deaths of the ‘Balibo Five’ inside out, I too was deeply moved by this movie. It is painfully faithful in its portrayal of the key events and players, while using a little dramatic licence to give coherence. It has its share of edge-of–the-seat moments.
One of the five Australian-based journalists was a courageous young New Zealander, Gary Cunningham. Actor Guyton Grantley brings to life his appealing exuberance and charm which were his trademarks. He was an award winning cameraman with a promising future ahead of him, and he paid the ultimate price for his commitment to his craft. We should honour him. To the East Timorese he and his colleagues are martyrs who died trying to let the world now about a looming atrocity – the bloody Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
To New Zealand’s shame our Government has always tried to avoid pursuing the cause of justice for the Balibo Five. The bureaucrats were quite blatant back in 1975 and 1976 – since there was ‘no clear cut case’ against Indonesia for a violation of international law any NZ action would only ‘harm our own relations with Indonesia’. Gary was living in Australia, and working for an Australian news media so ‘no necessity’ for New Zealand involvement!
The story of western complicity in the Indonesian take-over is the back story of this film, and there has been some quite sharp criticism from John Pilger and others that not enough is made of this infamous chronology and the genocide it led to.
However, the movie is proving very powerful. The Balibo crime has been investigated some 8 times, most recently by an extremely thorough inquest conducted in Sydney in 2007. The Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, concluded her hearing with an unequivocal finding which named those directly responsible and referred the matter to the Australian Attorney General for consideration of a war crimes prosecution. There the matter lay for some 22 months but two months after ‘Balibo’ was shown at the Melbourne Film Festival the Federal Police have announced that they are beginning a war crimes investigation!
You can follow developments on the film’s official web-site www.balibo.com and you can check out the fascinating “Balibo in Depth’ and ‘Film vs reality’ sections compiled by the film’s consulting historian Clinton Fernandes .
To conclude, praise is due to Anthony La Paglia who starred as the journalist Roger East – a complex, conflicted but deeply compassionate individual. Roger’s story was often overshadowed by that of the Balibo Five, but thanks to Anthony’s fine performance he is now unforgettable.
*
Balibo is due for general release in Aotearoa in January 2010
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pmand is filed under News, Timor Leste. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.