Violence and coarse language
Australia (2009)
Genre: Drama
Director: Robert Connolly
Featuring: Anthony LePaglia, Oscar Isaac, Nathan Phillips, Gyton Grantley,Damon Gameau, Thomas Wright, Mark Winter.
Language: English
Running time: 111 mins
As Indonesia prepares to invade the tiny nation of East Timor, five Australian based journalists go missing. Four weeks later, veteran foreign correspondent Roger East is lured to East Timor by the young and charismatic José Ramos-Horta to tell the story of his country and investigate the fate of the missing men. As East’s determination to uncover the truth grows, the threat of invasion intensifies and an unlikely friendship develops between the last foreign correspondent in East Timor and the man who will become President. BALIBO is a political thriller that tells the true story of crimes that have been covered up for over thirty years.
Watching the deaths of the 5 journalists is almost unbearable. In dramatic terms, we know little about these five men, accept that they died horribly. The film gives us little of their characters because it has a lot of ground to cover. Channel Seven reporter Greg Shackleton is shown as romantic, perhaps tragically so. Channel Nine’s Malcolm Rennie is game and impetuous. Cameraman Gary Cunningham is an amiable professional, like Brian Peters. The sound-man Tony Stewart is the youngest of the five at 21.
The director, Robert Connolly, who co-wrote the script with David Williamson, assembles the pieces with great methodical logic. It’s much more ambitious than The Bank or Three Dollars, his earlier films –
more forensic and committed, yet freer in its willingness to let us draw our own conclusions. Connolly gives a strong sense of the tragedy and resilience of the East Timorese, as well as a clear account of one of the great crimes in our modern history. The one person not in the film, to whom it is deeply indebted, is Jill Jolliffe, the journalist who has spent 34 years trying to tell the story. The film is based on her book Cover Up. In some respects, Balibo is her vindication.
The film is banned in Indonesia.
News.com.au, IMDB, The Sydney Morning Herald. Compiled by Sue Aylett