At the pier, people - women and men, fathers and husbands, or the child who disobeys the father and mother - gave their lives on the horizon landscape. Restless necks ready to be slaughtered, eyes crawling on top of a gun, boots against the roar of the waves Ombai Strait, appointed in December 1975 calendar. A white man dressed in khaki two soldiers been dragged into the lips decade. He is splitting the rancid airs port with shouts of, "I am an Australian. I am an Australian." As background, the people kneeling on the floor and remember the prayers. An Indonesian military officer with bright safari inspected among the persecuted.
The Australian, puffy and shaky, handed to the edge of the pier. He is old and fat like a pendulum swaying gently hours. Mouth rifle is only a few arms from the nose. He mumbled again ego, "I am an Australian. "And, bam. A bullet pushed to the waves below.
In situations of war, death is not something impossible. He comes with so arrogantly, as well as thrilling, as shown in the execution, which can be seen in the Australian film “Balibo Five”, by director Robert Connolly. The Australian is a reporter for AAP and Reuters Australia, Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia), who came to East Timor (now Timor Leste) to find out about the disappearance of five young Australian journalists in Balibo, Bobonaro district, 10 kilometers from West Timor.
However, the “Balibo Five” could not merely speak about the annexation. Played in the Utan Kayu and Salihara, Jakarta, after failing to JiFFest by Lembaga Sensof Film (LSF), movie audiences exert the army's brutality, in this case the military, against everything considered as the enemy. Including, the journalists who were victims: Greg Shackleton (27), Tony Stewart (21), Gary Cunningham (27), Malcolm Rennie (28), and Brian Peters (29). Here, the audience must have wisdom. Knowledge about the history of conflict in East Timor was crucial.
With the flow back and forth, this movie shows the adventures with the details and Ramos Horta East (Oscar Isaac) along the interior of Balibo to find the young reporters. "All the closed roads leading to it closed," said Horta, "we can only walk." Camera recorded the grinning faces of East. "But you're not so young," Horta said the East. "You're still young. You are the one who should set the rhythm," said the Australian.
Route Horta and East also partially traversed by the young reporter who lost it. We invited out of the screen through a different character. Then, when they arrived in Balibo, East and Horta see the landscape not reassuring: Dry land. Charred houses-quiet. Resting bodies and blood loss. Horta limp in mourning. East wiped her tears. "Barbarian!" wailed Horta in the hot afternoon giddy.
Soon, after burying the bodies, they entered the village where five journalists died young. Move the camera. We brought in a time when the military entered the village. Fretilin forces are now visible, which usually protect the journalists, topsy-turvy. "We must go," said the commander told one reporter. "No, not enough," replied the journalist. He intended to take pictures military invasion, but not perfect light to activate the camera. "Soon," he said.
With staggered, the journalists finally managed to highlight the military forces of change uniforms and rifles in their direction. Fortunately, not be achieved. They surrounded and cornered in a house called as the Australian Embassy. One of them decided to negotiate, on behalf of the profession. The gun exploded in his head. The next minute, the screen filled with the execution of four other journalists. By covering the trail, the soldiers burned the young bodies with celluloid.
"TNI did not like that. TNI Pancasila," said Sutiyoso, as quoted by Tempo magazine. “Balibo Five” is not a documentary though it shown proper cinematic documentaries. If you've seen “The Year of Living Dangerously”, Australian film about Indonesia in 1965 from the viewpoint of a kangaroo country's journalists, you'll find the same technique.
Like a movie that refers to the historical, fictional character scattered in “Balibo Five”. One of them is Juliana, a child who met Roger East in the hotel where he was staying. Juliana in the film is plot as if the “real” witness on the first day military invasion to Dili. From his eyes the audience also witnessed the execution of Roger East.
As the East, which at the end of his life in the film stressed to his Australian, East Balibo was thick with the perception of Australia. Overall, details of this movie are based on the evidence of eyewitnesses to the 7824 Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) Timor-Leste.
Historian Dr. Fernandez Clinton from the Australian Defense Academy at the University of New South Wales, is used to guide its historical context. A pile of documents from East Timor, Australia, England, America, to Portugal, minus Indonesia, also made as considerations.
However, we should be grateful. This film inspires more of our memories of a time when the power was so repressive. At a certain point, presumably, we can remember the words Roger East to Horta in the movie: "I had to stay. If I go, so there is no bashers who live here." Indeed, the truth is not always singular. And in the context of cinema, not history, the movie has his own truth.
See Indonesian version on this link: Balibo Five: Rasa Australia di Timur Indonesia
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