Balibo - Robert Connolly

i militari serial killer indonesiani sono dentro alcuni grandi film, come “Un anno vissuto pericolosamente”, di Peter Weir e i due grandi film documentari di Joshua Oppenheimer, (qui e qui). “Balibo” e ambientato a Timor est (prima sotto il dominio portoghese e poi sotto il giogo degli indonesiani, che uccisero 200000 persone, col benestare Usa, con gli australiani che giravano la faccia, e col resto del mondo indifferente).

Nel 1996 Jose Ramos Horta (in esilio) e Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo (vescovo timorese) hanno vinto il premio Nobel per la pace, nel 2002 Timor Est è diventato indipendente.

protagonisti del film sono Oscar Isaac (Jose Ramos Horta), quando ancora non era il cantante folk dei fratelli Coen, e Anthony LaPaglia (Roger East), che sono davvero bravissimi e convincenti, la musica è di Lisa Gerrard.

film mai passato nelle nostre sale, eppure è un signor film, coinvolgente ed emozionante, niente da invidiare a quelli di Peter Weir e Joshua Oppenheimer, cercatelo, non ve ne pentirete, promesso - Ismaele

…Balibo dramatises the fate of the five young reporters through a series of flashbacks, which are combined with the story of Australian journalist Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) who travelled to Balibo four weeks after the murders.

The movie opens with testimony from Julianna, an East Timorese woman who witnessed some of the Indonesian atrocities. It then moves back to the northern Australian city of Darwin in late October 1975, where Fretilin secretary of foreign affairs, Jose Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaacs), has located Roger East.

The world-weary 51-year-old reporter displays little interest in what is going on in East Timor until the 25-year-old Ramos-Horta gives him a file on the murder of the television reporters. The Fretilin leader offers to take East to where the reporters were killed, if he will head the newly-created East Timor News Agency…

da qui

…Balibo is a powerful film, notable for a remarkable performance by Oliver Isaac as the young Horta, plus a sensitive, moving performance from Anthony LaPaglia and for the very real sense of place - thanks to actual East Timor locations. The Indonesians don't come off too well, as you'd expect, but the performances are terrific (and chilling). Lisa Gerrard's infinite good taste delivers a series of music cues that are beautiful yet melancholy in the way only she can.

da qui

…Director Robert Connolly and his co-script writer David Williamson have chosen is to tell the story from the point of view of an Indonesian woman who recalls the events as an eight year old girl. This suggests everything we see is witnessed by her, which is not the case as the film ambitiously intercuts the two main strands of the story, including documentary-like flashbacks that show what horrors took place with the missing journalists. The pieces of the puzzle are gradually put together. The backdrop is the 1975 invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the massacre that even today, the Indonesian and Australian Governments deny…

da qui

…“Balibo” es una película que obliga a realizar un ejercicio de memoria y a abrir los ojos a un conflicto olvidado, y lo hace con vigor y aplomo, dándole extrema fuerza a su reconstrucción de los acontecimientos sacrificando otras reflexiones y exploraciones que le hubiesen dado todavía una mayor dimensión.

da qui

…“Balibo” is shocking, raw and absorbing filmmaking of the very highest quality, which benefits from its directorial craft and compelling acting — but most importantly from its verity.

da qui

…LaPaglia is excellent as the reluctant hero, acting as our surrogate as he gradually pieces together the last moves of these young men, but you can't help feeling that a stronger film would have emerged if more time was spent with the Five rather than the One.

Despite its structural instability, Connolly still manages to find plenty of poignancy in the TV journalists' reports - much, presumably, based on film that the actual men shot - and to gather an emotional head of steam for the climatic scenes. A coda using newsreel footage to detail what happened to Ramos-Horta and the country in the years that followed is a powerful and welcome way to 'resolve' the story.

da qui