Cut Print Review

“There are no secrets that time does not reveal”, recites Australian director Robert Connolly (The Bank, Three Dollars), echoing the  words of 16^th century French dramatist Jean Racine.  Connolly’s latest film, the factual political thriller Balibo, greatly attests to Racine’s wisdom. It brings to the fore a damning piece of Australasian history that, for the last 34 years, the Australian and Indonesian government have desperately attempted to bury.

But Balibo isn’t merely a didactic recount of the five Australian journalists -  labeled the ‘Balibo Five’ – who travelled to East Timor in 1975 to report on the impending Indonesian invasion, only to never return. As a film, it’s easily one of the most  haunting, thrilling and engaging cinematic experience of the year, which has just as much to say about today’s political landscape as it does yesteryear’s.

With Balibo opening nationally on August 13^th, I was given the opportunity to talk to director Robert Connolly and actor Damon Gameau (Thunderstruck, The Tracker), who plays Greg Shackleton, the Channel Seven news reporter who was one of the Balibo Five. During our interview, we discussed the contemporary relevance of the film, what lengths they went to keep the film as factual as possible, how the victims’ families and the Indonesian government have responded to the film and why the film’s star, Anthony LaPaglia, initially only had a cameo in the early drafts.

Spoiler warning: In the same way that some might consider “Adolf Hitler committed suicide” a spoiler, this interview openly discusses  the outcome of the events at Balibo. If you’re not at all familiar with the events, maybe consider seeing the film first, and then returning to read this interview.

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CUT PRINT REVIEW: You’ve said yourself that this is a story that “demands to be told”. Why do you think it took 34 years for that to happen?

ROBERT CONNOLLY: Well someone said to me Gallipoli took seventy years to get made, Breaker Morant took ninety after the Boer war and that we’re actually quite quick off the mark! (laughs) But it is a weird thing for Australia though that – you know, America was making films about Vietnam within two years of the war finishing. So it’s a really good question to ask and I don’t really know, though I think the political sensitivity of this story really made it difficult for filmmakers to make it.

So was there any pressure from the government to prevent this story from being told?

CONNOLLY: Hard to know because you can never really find any evidence of that. But other people have tried to tell it. There’s part of me that also thinks that maybe some of the other films just focused on the Balibo five, and that falls into the genre of ‘white man saving the third world film’. We found a different way into the story, and maybe that helped this to get made when the others didn’t. I know there are half a dozen filmmakers who have tried to get this made actually.

What kind of relevance do you think the film has today?

CONNOLLY: We were just at the international press conference in Helsinki, a month ago, and they monitor the number of journalists that have been killed each year. Last year there was something like seventy journalists killed, already this year there’s been thirty. They’re really worried, in an ongoing way, that journalists are being killed because they’re journalists. The Balibo Five story is a real turning point because, prior to that in the Vietnam War, journalists had been caught in the crossfire and the action, but hadn’t been targeted as journalists. Whereas the Balibo Five is a tragic turning point because they were killed because they were journalists. So I think its relevant today where we continue to have journalists exposed to the risks.

But it’s complicated because when America attacks Baghdad it takes out Al Jazeera on day one.

DAMON GAMEAU: That’s right, it’s their first target.

CONNOLLY: So yeah, you got to say we’re complicit in that, you know? So I think it’s very relevant in that regard.

Damon, as someone who wasn’t around to see the events of 1975, why was it that you wanted to be a part of retelling this story?

GAMEAU: Someone was telling me that in one of the marches in Iran a couple of weeks ago that the Government officials were told not to target the demonstrators, but to shoot the people with the mobile phones that were filming the actual rally.  So the snipers were told to actually target those guys instead of the protesters. So you realise just how pertinent it is, still.

You realise that, increasingly we are living in a world, in a society, where what we know and what we are told by governments is vastly different to what is actually going on. I think even more so today, the press and the lack of free press, that this story seemed so relevant today. As an actor, it’s not very often you get to play someone who you perceive as quite heroic. Someone that died doing what they actually loved doing. You don’t get to play noble figures, you know, the scripts you invariably get sent talk about breaking up with your girlfriend or having a fight.

So to play someone that actually existed, and actually died doing something they were passionate about, is fantastic.

Was there  a lot of pressure put on you  portraying someone like Greg, given he  has a family looking to preserve his memory?

GAMEAU: They were so accommodating, I never felt any pressure. I guess the only pressure was kind of self inflicted, what with the responsibility and weight in what we were doing. For me, my dealings were mainly with Shirley [Shackleton], Greg’s wife. For me personally, she was so supportive, to the point of saying;

“Greg did have some difficulties with people, he did rub them the wrong way, and feel free show that. He was very ambitious and a bit prickly. I want you to show that.”

As an actor, that’s so liberating! You realise you don’t have to sentimentalise anything. You don’t have to make this guy a really friendly guy that everyone loves, you can actually make him a bit more three dimensional. As a result, people relate more and it’s harder to watch when they actually die because they’re real people and not this kind of mythologised version of them.

What was it like coming to an end of your journey as Greg and filming his final moments…

GAMEAU: It’s very hard to describe. It’s like, you spend two months researching someone, spending time with their family, and then you actually witness their death. You live through their death. That’s a very hard thing to explain to anyone, because you’ve immersed yourself in this person – his diary and his family – and suddenly you watch your life go into him and it’s… quite harrowing. It’s a big responsibility that you take on and that you have to be quite savvy with that because you’re toying with big, powerful emotions.

I read a news article from 2004 stating that some of the families of the Balibo victims were “horrified” you were making a film based on Jill Jolliffe’s book ‘Cover Up’. Given how many had campaigned for years to actually shed some light on the issue, why were they so reluctant to see this finally occur?

CONNOLLY: I can’t imagine they were horrified; I think that Shirley [Shackleton] was the only one that was a bit worried. They love the film now, and that’s what matters to me. To have them all on stage at the Melbourne Film Festival was great.

So you think it was misquoted in the media then?

CONNOLLY: Well I think it may have been Shirley? But I don’t know.

GAMEAU: I think they were all naturally apprehensive, because it’s a story they’ve had for 34 years and for someone to come along and – suddenly you meet a guy who’s playing your husband. You know? Imagine the trepidation of getting it right, because they do want the story to be told accurately.

Yeah, I think film is one of those touchy mediums where it’s either done right or taken completely the wrong way…

GAMEAU: Oh yeah, this could have been a catastrophe.

CONNOLLY: I was terrified! When I showed it to Shirley Shackleton I was horrified. I had to put on a screening for all the families as soon as we finished it, we promised that. Because you do feel a responsibility dealing with real people. It was a great relief that they liked it, because releasing the film now, if they hadn’t, it would have been a catastrophe.

What if one of the family members didn’t like it, would you have gone back and changed the final edit?

CONNOLLY: No I wouldn’t have changed it. Having said that, we did listen to their views in the development of it. Between 2004 and when we made it, we spent a lot of time with them. [Damon] got to know Shirley quite well. I met with all the families to hear their views. But it’s like a lot of things; when you’re trying to get to the bottom of the truth, it’s really hard – you can’t be too influenced by them.

GAMEAU: Also after 35 years, people’s versions of truth are – everyone’s got a story or they’ve got an anecdote about something. There are so many things that come in to it.

It must not have been easy to bring up those memories 35 years later…

GAMEAU: Oh, I can’t even imagine that and how confronting that is for them. But the families to us – for the five boys – they were so supportive. To the point where I remember the night before we did the execution scene, Shirley said to me earlier ‘ring me anytime’. I rang her that night and asked her about how she would have thought Greg would have reacted. And to actually give me an answer to that…what a gift that is. You know?

CONNOLLY: Yeah, it’s pretty incredible.

So what other lengths did you go to in order to keep the film as factual as possible?

CONNOLLY: The coroner’s findings in 2007 were amazingly helpful. She interviewed dozens of people she bought out from Timor. I sat in on a lot of them and read her findings, so the murders of the men were based on that. That’s the factual background on that, which was great. We also had a consulting historian, Dr. Clinton Fernandes, and we also had people who were actually there. When we were in Balibo, we had Lt. Colonel Sabika – the man in the film with the red bandanna, who is now in his sixties and a Lieutenant in the army – he came to show what happened on the day. He even came out to MIFF [Melbourne International Film Festival], wasn’t that great!

GAMEAU: So many parallels like that, of people we met, that were actually there at the time. Even in that massacre scene at the end, a lot of those extras were direct relatives of people that had lost their lives on the actual day. So you can imagine the commitment they had. Like, you have ten takes of something, and these girls will be crying after ten takes, because they wanted the story told.

CONNOLLY: It does weigh heavily, that responsibility as a filmmaker to try and get it right. And you are fictionalising it; like you are interpreting the truth.

At the end of the day though, you are trying to engage and entertain the audience as well as educate them…

CONNOLLY: That’s right. I mean, there’s a buddy story and it’s a political thriller. I don’t want it be a lecture, you know? Navigating all of that with this film has been incredibly complicated over many years. It’s amazing how it’s come together. (laughs)

GAMEAU: When you look at it like that, the amount of things that could have gone wrong – this could have been such a catastrophe. (laughs)

CONNOLLY: Yeah, it’s like someone said; to make something work, you have to walk that fine line between utter failure and success. If you just make something average, well, it’s easy to do that.

So what was the biggest part of the film that you had to fictionalise?

CONNOLLY: I think the biggest thing was hypothesising about the dialogue between [Jose Ramos-]Horta and [Roger] East, and their dynamic. I mean, Horta told me some stuff. But I was inspired by the film The Queen, which hypothesised the dialogue between the Queen and Princess Diana. It’s really interesting because Horta since said to me; “you know, there’s stuff in there that you’ve made up, but it’s all possible that it could have happened.”

It reminded me of something Raimond Gaita said when we made Romulus, My Father, which I produced. He said; “there’s not one event in the film which is as it happened, but there is not anything that’s untrue in the entire film.” (laughs)

It’s an interesting question; what is truth? I mean, we were trying to get to the truth of it, but it’s not a documentary. We don’t have transcripts of what they said. So you know, the pool fight and the journey and all that – there’s a lot of stuff we added.

GAMEAU: It’s similar with our stuff, too. We had the actual footage that Channel 7 and 9 provided, like Greg’s piece-to-camera. But what was fun in the process was recreating what actually happened before that piece. So you get that lovely piece in the hut with the kids where they’re listing to the stories. So we actually got to put in place what would have happened that lead up to Greg’s piece. That was great to expand on the story.

I read that that you initially planned to use Greg’s original piece-to-camera and not actually recreate it like you eventually did. What made you change your mind?

CONNOLLY: Well his performance was going really well up there [East Timor], so Damon and I had a chat and he decided to have a go at it. We were in this remote place, and there was this hut, and we just tried it and it was magnificent. And I think, emotionally, it would have pulled the audience out to see the real footage…

GAMEAU: It would have been strange, in retrospect, it would have been odd.

CONNOLLY: I think the other thing was we were so effectively reproducing that footage with the old lenses. We took up lenses from the seventies, and older cameras.

Wow, so that ‘old film look’ wasn’t just an effect added later during editing?

CONNOLLY: No, that was all achieved using the old lenses.

GAMEAU: Yeah, it’s why it’s got that old seventies, grainy, documentary look.

And all those pieces you see, where my character spoke to the camera, we had them all. I had them on my iPod video. So we’d get to exactly the same location for that shot and then we’d match the shot. So we’d get the extras to sit in there, notice that ‘oh that kid had his shirt off’ or ‘those soldiers stood over there’. Even the director of photography would zoom in at the same time. So we absolutely recreated the look. It just added to the authenticity of it.

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Continue reading part two of our interview with Robert Connolly and Damon Gameau, where we discuss the development of Anthony LaPaglia’s character Roger East, how Indonesia have called the film a work of fiction and the current state of the Australian film industry on a whole.

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